Destined
by ronniekins77
Summary: As Claire continues with life after New York, the reappearance of her uncle in her life is only the beginning of a series of events that will change her life forever. Peter/Claire, West/Claire. INCOMPLETE.
1. Dying's No Big Deal

**Chapter One - Dying's No Big Deal**

**_To: FilmsbyZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader_**

_Thanks for not freaking out today when I showed you what I can do. You didn't freak out last time, either, and I really appreciate it._

_The ride home on your handlebars was weird, btw. Totally different from when we were kids, huh?_

_---_

She has a hero and his name is Peter Petrelli. He saved her at Homecoming, rescued her from a man named Sylar, and died in the process. She healed him with her powers, and was shocked beyond belief that he had powers, too.

They were connected now. She had felt the connection while talking to him in that hallway, had been struck by the feeling that they might meet again. Now it was stronger, because he had saved her life.

She came to his apartment in New York City, knocked on the door, and was let in by a woman who had crinkly lines across her face, dark pink lipstick, and Peter's hair.

A woman who is apparently her grandmother.

She stands in the living room of Peter's apartment now, in a state of complete shock. Looking down at a picture of two men in suits, she recognizes Peter immediately. Her eyes gaze down at the man next to him, his brother, her father. Nathan Petrelli. She can't believe it. She doesn't know which is more crazy - the fact that she's found her father, one who is running for Congress, or the fact that Peter Petrelli is her uncle.

She realizes that this woman, her grandmother, is speaking to her. "And that handsome man is Peter, but you've already met him now, haven't you?"

"He saved my life," Claire says. "He forgot to mention that we were related." She fails to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"Oh, he didn't know. He didn't even know that you existed."

Claire finds a little relief in this news - for once, someone who hasn't lied to her - but it doesn't outweigh the feeling of intense nausea in her stomach.

---

**_To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader_**

_I know you're probably worried about me and wondering where I am. I'm safe. I think. I'm in New York, actually. I came here to find Peter Petrelli - you know, the guy that saved my life. Turns out that he's my uncle. And I saved his life today. I'll tell you more when I see you, though I don't know when that'll be. A lot's going on right now. _

_---_

She's lying in the bed (she refuses to think of it as her bed) and she has never felt more out of place. The sheets are too scratchy, and there are too many pillows and no stuffed animals in sight. Sighing, she sits up and leans over to the nightstand next to her. She opens the drawer and pulls out the gun, running her fingers over the black metal.

He's insane. Absolutely _insane_. She's put up with a lot in her lifetime, but she's never heard anything as outrageous as this. Peter wants her to shoot him in order to save the world. He had given her the gun today, telling her that this was the only way to stop the bomb from going off.

It's all she's been able to think about. Part of her wants to believe him, believe that she's really a part of something. She wants to believe that she can actually do it - that she can actually look her hero in the eye and kill him so that millions can be saved.

But even though she took the gun from his hands, even though she decided to stay in New York, the rational part of keeps repeating _This is crazy_ in her head.

She hears a knock on the door. "Come in," she says, still looking down at the gun.

"Hey."

Claire looks up, sees Peter framed in the doorway. "Hi."

"How are you?" he asks.

She puts the gun back in the drawer, then takes a moment before saying, "Fine, I guess."

"I told my mother that you're not going to Paris," he says, his mouth twitching a little into a smile.

She can't help but smile back briefly. "What'd she say?"

"She didn't take it very well, but I guess it's a small price to pay when it comes to saving the world."

"You mean like you dying?" Claire says, and the words come out harsher than she expects them to.

Peter lets out a soft sigh and sits down next to her on the bed. "I can regenerate, remember? All you'd have to do is take the bullet out. Dying's no big deal, right?"

Claire tries to smile, but she can't. Instead she feels her eyes well up with tears and she shifts away from him, refusing to meet his eyes, refusing to let him see her cry.

"I'll be alright, Claire, I promise," he says.

She takes a deep breath, nods, then turns back around to face him, looking up at him with watery eyes. "I know," she says. "It's destiny."

He smiles then, and gives her one of those awkward one-armed hugs, and she thinks that if he believes in all of this so much, then she will, too.

---

**_To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader_**

_I thought I would be in Paris by now. My bio-grandma wanted to send me there and so did Nathan (it doesn't feel right calling him bio-dad), but Peter stepped in. He wants me to save the world instead. I'm so scared, but I trust Peter. I wish you were here. You'd do something stupid that would make me laugh. Please give my mom a hug for me, okay._

_---_

The air is thick with tension and Claire doesn't know how to clear it. They've just barely managed to escape capture by the FBI, and she's still shaking. She keeps seeing Ted's defeated face in her mind as the officers tackled him to the ground. Peter is obviously a little anxious as well, but he's hiding it much better than she is.

"Do you think Ted's going to be okay?" she asks Peter, finally breaking the silence between them.

He glances over at her quickly before turning his eyes back to the road. "I'm sure he'll be fine," he says, but she knows he's lying.

She lets out a sigh and goes back to staring out the window.

"So - when's your birthday?" Peter bursts out suddenly and Claire looks toward him in surprise.

"What?"

"Well, I've missed all your birthdays and I'm your uncle." He grins slightly. "Kinda sad, right?"

"It's September 13," she says proudly, touched that he'd asked. "And now that you know I expect a big present from you next year. To make up for all the birthdays you missed."

He laughs, and she's pleased at this response.

"When's your birthday?" she asks.

"October 5," he answers.

She shifts in her seat so that her body is facing in his direction. She hesitates only for a second before saying, "How old are you?"

"Too old," he says, but he's smiling.

"How old is 'too old'?" she probes him, genuinely wanting to know.

"I'm 26."

"That's not old," she says, rolling her eyes.

"How old are you?"

"How old do you think I am?"

They've reached a traffic light and Peter guides the car to a stop, before shifting in the same way Claire did moments ago, so that they're facing each other directly. He looks her up and down quickly, and she feels her heart flutter a little against her chest, and then he shrugs. "17, 18?" he guesses.

"I just turned 16," she corrects him. "A lot of people think I'm older than I am, though." She doesn't add _Because I developed earlier than all the other girls my age_, because that would just be weird.

Still, even Peter looks surprised. "Homecoming Queen at 15. Congratulations," he says. Claire's stomach churns; Homecoming always brings back bad memories for her. Peter notices, and apologizes quickly.

"It's okay," she says. There's that silence again, and Claire shakes her head, hating it. "So, um, what do you do? For a living?"

The light finally turns green. "I'm a nurse," he tells her.

She smiles inwardly. _It figures._ "So you're a nurse by day, hero by night, huh?" she says, and he looks just the way he did when she called him a hero the first time.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

_The guy who tried to kill me just killed someone else like me. We think he's planning to destroy the whole city. I'm so scared, but I feel safe with Peter. I know he cares about me. He wiped my tears away today; it was the sweetest thing._

_---_

Claire can't believe her ears; can't believe that Peter's own mother and brother can just stand aside and do nothing about the explosion that's _going_ to happen (she's sure of it now), that they can watch him die, or let him be responsible for killing millions of people.

She can't believe that these people are related to her. She can't believe that _Peter_ is related to them. Whatever anger she had been feeling towards him for lying to her has faded, and has shifted entirely to his family.

Claire stares up into Nathan's eyes, and he's telling her that everything will make sense soon, but she doesn't trust a word that comes out his mouth. "We're offering you everything you've ever wanted, Claire," says her grandmother behind her, "a place to belong...a family."

But Claire already has a family. She has a father who brings her teddy bears, a mother who wants to be her best friend, and a brother who cried when he thought she was dead.

And the one person that ever made her feel like she belonged is the one that these... i people /i are ready to abandon when he needs them the most. Her place is beside him, and so she leans slowly to hug Nathan, then pushes him roughly away and jumps out of the window. When she picks herself off the ground, she runs to fulfill her destiny.

As she lifts the gun, she feels her heart breaking. Peter's hands are glowing orange-red, his face is flickering shadows, and white light bounces off of his body. He looks scared, but his intense gaze is determined, heroic, and it makes the doubt in her rise to the surface.

How can she do it? How can she kill someone so good? How can she kill the man who saved her, who made her feel like she worth something? The tears stream down her face, the gun shakes violently in her limp fingers, and she begs him to tell her there's another way.

He tells her there is no other way, tells her to shoot him, and she tries to steel herself for what she has to do to save the world.

And then it's as if everything is knocked upside down. Nathan is here and pushing down her hand, softly saying that the future isn't written in stone. He flies away with Peter and she watches, the emotion whirling throughout her and exploding like the night.

Her father comes over to her and she can't help but smile through her tears, because not only has Peter proven himself to be a hero yet again, but her bio-dad has, too.

---

**_To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader_**

_My dad and I are in a rental car, and we just left New York. The world's been saved and I'm finally coming home._

---

**A/N: **This piece of fanfiction was started during the break between Season 1 and Season 2 of Heroes. Chapters 1-15 were written during this time, but they still include a few spoilers for Season 2, like character's names, etc. So I suppose this fic is now officially AU.

I've gotten into the habit of making lots of art for this fic, and often an art relates directly to a chapter. I will try to make these art links available as soon as possible (FF is a little hard to figure out in terms of HTML and images, so it might take awhile).

I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the fic!


	2. Home Is Where The Heart Is

**Chapter Two - Home Is Where The Heart Is**

After a day of driving, they arrive in Odessa at around 2:00 in the morning and check into a hotel. Claire's body feels weak and exhausted, but she doesn't care. She walks into the hotel room to a mixture of warm greetings from her mother and brother; her mother hugs her for about five minutes straight and Lyle gives her a shy, awed smile.

Claire tries to smile back, tries to hold on to her earlier feelings of happiness and relief at saving New York, but she can't. She's realized now that saving the world has come at a price - the price of her father and her uncle. She continues to see them in her mind, sees Nathan finally telling his little brother that he loves him, sees them flying high above her, sees the explosion that lights up the sky...

Claire is grateful when her dad tells her mother and brother not to press her with any questions; that she's exhausted and has been through a lot. Normally she would respond that she wasn't made of glass, that she was indestructible and wouldn't break, that she didn't need protecting, but for now she's thankful to be treated this way.

She falls asleep the second her head hits the pillow, but her dreams are haunted with hugs from Nathan and Peter's rare smiles.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

_Zach comes over, and Claire nearly cries with joy at seeing him. She avoids her family, not wanting to be interrogated. They go to the place where her house used to stand, and all that's left is burnt rubble. That night they come back to the hotel at around midnight, and they lay out on her bed, her feet positioned by his head, and she finally tells him through tears everything that's happened to her in the past week._

_---_

Claire walks through house after house with her family, and she wishes she were anywhere else. A month ago she would have leapt at the opportunity to go house hunting, to do something that was normal, but that's changed now. The realtor's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard and the frustration rises inside of her.

There's only one thing that she needs to do right now, and it's way more important than buying a house.

She pulls her dad aside as they leave one of the houses (a big one, much larger than their old one, which reminds her of the Petrelli mansion). "Dad, we have to go back to New York," she says bluntly, the tentative Claire of yesterday gone.

He slowly stops walking and looks down at her determined face. It's been three days since she's come home. After overcoming the shock of everything she'd been through, she'd been hit with only one desire - to find Nathan and Peter Petrelli.

"What do you mean, Claire-bear?"

"You said there was a tracking system," she says, careful to keep her voice down so her mother and brother don't hear her. "We need to find Nathan and Peter. Who knows where they are - "

"They're gone. No one could have survived that explosion." He places a hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture, and she instinctively leans into his touch, _she's just so tired_, but she pulls back.

"No," she argues, shaking her head furiously. "Peter can regenerate. I gave that to him - he can heal!"

"But Nathan - "

She grits her teeth and tries her hardest not to cry. Even she knows that Nathan is probably dead. There was no way he could survive - he didn't have her power.

"We have to find Peter," she presses on, her hands trembling. "He saved my life. He's my uncle. I _owe_ him."

For a second she is sure that her father is going to agree with her, that they'll finally be past the point where he needs to protect her, but his face tenses and she knows that he's going to say no. "Claire," he says, and it sounds almost like an apology. His hands are on both her shoulders now and she can't stop a tear or two from falling down her face.

She refuses to look him in the eyes.

---

"Peter was the only person who ever made me feel safe."

"Claire, I'm sure that he has people looking for him. You're not the only one who cares about him."

"His own mother," she says tightly, "was willing to let him die."

"Maybe you should call her."

"I don't want to call her, I want to find Peter!"

"I know, but don't you think she could help?"

"No."

Over and over she tries to convince her father. It's gotten to the point that whenever she walks into a room and catches his eye, he sighs. But she refuses to give up. She wants to do this with his help - he's smart, knows so much more about everything than she does, and he's her father.

"Dad, please," she says at dinner three days later. They've bought a new house, which is completely bare, because all of their posessions are gone.

"Here we go again," sighs Lyle, and Claire resists the urge to stab him with her fork.

"Claire, it's too dangerous, honey," interjects her mother. "That man...he's still out there, isn't he?"

Claire preferred her when she had no clue what was going on. "No," she says, not taking her eyes off her dad, who is stirring his peas around on his plate. "Sylar's dead."

Her father finally looks up. "Claire - "

"Dad, you told me that home is anywhere that our family is together," she says firmly, having practiced this new speech a few hours ago. "_Peter_ is my family, too. He's my uncle. We're connected...it's biological. I can't help it, I need to know where he is. _Please._

Her dad goes back to his peas; she says she isn't hungry anymore and stalks out of the dining room.

---

Claire's stomach twists and turns as she looks into the smiling faces of her uncle and father. On the bottom of the screen, white letters flash across the screen: 'Funeral for Congressman Petrelli and his brother to be held on November 20th.'

Zach abruptly turns off the TV and she's stiff as a board. All it takes is his arm wrapped her neck and she loses herself, crying into his Maroon 5 t-shirt.

Her pink cell phone trembles ever so slightly in her hands as she dials Angela Petrelli's phone number. A voice comes on the line after a few rings, a New Yorker-soft-regal voice, and it takes every ounce of willpower inside of Claire not to hang up.

"It's Claire Bennet," she says.

There is a pause and heavy breathing on the other end of the phone. Then, "What do you want?"

"I want to come to the funeral," she says.

"This is all your fault," her grandmother whispers brokenly. "I gave you the chance to be a part of our family, to have everything in the world placed at your feet, and you threw it away. There was a plan, Claire. Nathan would have been the city's hero after the explosion, and Peter would have regenerated. Now they're both gone. You ruined everything. My sons are dead because of you."

Claire doesn't even have an opportunity to open her mouth to respond before the woman lets out a grieved cry and hangs up the phone.

---

_She watches the funeral on TV with Zach, but it's all boring speeches and people who didn't know Nathan or Peter. Zach doesn't understand why, in the middle of the funeral, she locks herself in the bathroom and starts to laugh. She's laughing because, as she sadly reminds herself, she didn't really know them either._

_---_

Her father forces her to go back to school and she's never dreaded anything more in her entire life. School seems foreign to her, like some language she can't ever learn, and she hasn't ever felt more out of place.

All of her teachers ask why she's been gone for so long and she tells each one that she was so sick she was in the hospital for awhile; her dad forges a note to back up the story.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

_True to her word, Claire doesn't ask Zach to do her assignments. She just doesn't do them at all, and when a test marked with a giant __**F**__ is dropped on her desk, she doesn't even care._

_---_

"Did he have a power?"

The question startles her and Claire looks at her brother in surprise. It's the first time she's talked to him in over a week. "What?"

"Your dad..." Lyle shrugs, as if this is no big deal, "did he have a power?"

Claire nods, a small smile on her face. "He could fly."

Lyle's eyes light up. "That's so cool," he says, and he sits next to her on the steps. "What about - ?"

"Peter could absorb powers," she explains. "If he was around someone who could do something, then he could do it, too.

"Wow," he says, and Claire briefly thinks that it's so surreal to be having a conversation with him without worrying that he won't remember it the next day.

Claire looks down at her nails and goes on, "He could draw the future, too. He was supposed to regenerate, but - "

Lyle taps her shoulder with his, his attempt at not letting her sink into a depressive slump. "Do you think he's dead?" he asks bluntly.

"Of course he is," Claire mutters, digging her nails hard into her palm so that it bleeds. She watches as the blood disappears.

"But if he can regenerate, then he can't be, right?"

"That's what I thought, but, no one's heard from him. There's been search teams looking for him and Nathan. They're gone, Lyle."

"God, Claire," says Lyle, standing up and rolling his eyes, "you're such a defeatist."

Something in his words sparks something inside of her, and that night when the lights go out, she grabs her Sidekick and sneaks out of the house.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

_Get your car. We're going to save my hero._


	3. Homecoming

**Chapter Three - Homecoming**  
  
Claire's at a truck stop in Midland, studying a map intensely and trying not to panic. Zach's in the bathroom and she's just realized that she has absolutely no idea where she's going. Her destination is New York, but she has no clue how to get there and, apparently, no clue how to read a map.

"Ugh!" she says frustratedly, stamping her foot and regretting that she had never paid attention in geography class. She wishes that reading maps easily and effectively was her power.

Feeling a tap on her shoulder, Claire jumps about a foot in the air before turning around and smacking Zach for scaring her. Only it's not Zach.

"Dad?" she says, feeling her heart sink.

---

_When Zach comes out of the bathroom, Claire doesn't notice. She's too busy yelling at her father._

"How can you not understand how important this is to me?" she cries, throwing the giant, unreadable map in his face.

"Claire, I understand," her dad says, moving closer to her. "I understand that you feel connected to him, that he saved your life and that he's your uncle. I understand. But sneaking out in the middle of the night, involving Zach... that's not the way to go about things."

"I was willing, Mr. Bennet," Zach says, interrupting the scene. "I just wanted to see Claire smile again, you know?"

---__

In the car ride on the way home, Claire chooses to sit in the backseat with Zach. She takes his hand in hers, thanking him for at least trying to help her.

---

A week later she sits on the steps in the front of her school, even though it's the middle of the day and class is going on. It doesn't feel right to be learning about algebra when Peter is still out there somewhere dead or dying. School is nothing but guys trying to be cool and girls trying to get their attention, and Claire knows that this isn't who she is anymore.

What she is, she doesn't really know. She used to classify herself as a cheerleader, and in New York she thought maybe she could call herself a hero, but that's laughable now.

Even so, it's hard to go back to being "just a cheerleader". It seems so childish - a happy flick of red pom poms here and a bright white smile there - and she knows that she's past this point in her life. The joy had started to seep out of it after Jackie had died, and now, despite being promoted to Captain, all the thrill of it is gone. She thinks maybe she'd enjoy cheerleading if she knew Peter was okay; all of her time is spent worrying about him now, waiting for any sign that he's alive, and it's hard for her to enjoy anything anymore.

---

_"What are you doing out here, Claire?" he asks, setting down his bag beside her. She's on the football field in the rain, sitting on the topmost bleacher, her uniform plastered to her white skin._

She doesn't answer him.

"When the hell did you start smoking?" he asks, glaring at the cigarette in her fingers with a mixture of surprise and disgust.

Claire shrugs. "Laurie's boyfriend smokes."

"So?"

In truth, it's only her second cigarette and probably her last, but it's a comfort and she needs all the comfort she can get.

She stands, almost slipping on the wet bleachers, but Zach grabs her arm to steady her. 

"Seriously, Claire," he says, standing up with her.

She laughs hollowly. "It's not like I'll get cancer," she says, but she puts out the cigarette for his sake.

---

Claire thinks she's going crazy.

She'll be walking around town or cheering on the football field when she sees them - Peter and Nathan. Sometimes it's just Peter, looking the way he did when he told her life after high school gets better. Sometimes it's just Nathan, looking the way he did when he told her that he wanted to be there for her. And sometimes they're both there, smiling, as if they know something she doesn't.

One day she breaks down and starts yelling at their blurry forms, "This is sick, okay? Stop following me! I don't like stalkers!" She's not yelling because she's angry that the images keep haunting her - she's yelling because she's afraid that if she's seeing ghosts, then it means they're really dead.

---

_"My dad told me I needed therapy," Claire sighs, resting her head on Zach's shoulder._

"What do you think?"

A shrug. "He says I need closure."

"Do you?"

"No." She shakes her head sadly. "I just want them back."

She's beginning to think she never will.

---

She's standing in the cafeteria, arms folded across her chest, waiting for the lunch line to move. It always seems to move at a snail's pace, and it's grating on her nerves.

When Claire finally reaches the counter, pink tray in her hands, she sighs. There's no more chocolate milk left. She catches the attention of one of the lunch ladies and asks if there's any more in the refridgerator and the lady shakes her head.

"Damn it," Claire says, feeling tears prickle in the corners of her eyes. It seems like everything is affecting her these days.

"Here, you can have mine," says the boy in front of her. Claire looks up at him as he hands her the brown carton of milk and sees that he's tall, with dark hair and brown eyes.

She lowers her own eyes. "Thanks," she says quietly.

---

_She finds Zach and sits next to him, just like she always does. He's talking about a science test he just passed with flying colors, but she's too distracted to pay attention to him today. She keeps seeing the boy with dark hair and brown eyes in her head, and thinking about how Peter had dark hair and brown eyes, too._

---

She skips school for the hundredth time, goes to the highest bridge she can find, and jumps off.

When her body heals, she lets out a cry of angry frustration. If Peter could die despite his ability to regenerate, then why couldn't she?

She falls off the bridge over and over again, purposely trying to land on a bed of sticks she has arranged, hoping that one of them gets stuck in the back of her head.

---

_When Claire's exhausted from killing herself repeatedly, she turns and sees that Zach's been standing there the whole time, watching her._

She snaps the five fingers of her right hand back into place simultaneously, and walks over to him. "Don't say a word," she says, climbing onto his handlebars.

He does anyway. "Maybe you do need therapy."

She responds, even though she wants to ignore him. "Maybe I do."

---

"Alright, squad!" she screams, a smile pasted on her face. "Nice work today. See you tomorrow!"

But the cheerleaders don't start to dispand. Claire looks at them, confused. "I said practice was over."

Melanie Bishop walks up to her, an almost regrettable expression on her face. "Claire, we need to talk," she says in a business like tone.

"What is it?"

"Well, I think...that you need to be replaced as Captain."

Claire glares up at Melanie, wishing she was taller so she could be more intimidating. "Why would that be?"

"Your heart just doesn't seem to be in it, Claire," says another girl, Patty Swanson. "Your mind has been up in the clouds lately. And ever since Jackie..." She pauses, clearly struggling with her words. "We're not trying to be mean or anything, seriously - "

Claire scoffs.

" - we just think you need to focus on something other than cheerleading right now. Like whatever's been bugging you," finishes Melanie.

Claire looks around at the other girls, taking note of their ground-fixated stares. Feeling all the tension bubble inside of her, she snaps, "Does _everyone_ feel this way about me?"

Their silence is enough of an answer. It's too much. Throwing her pom-poms into Melanie's face, she runs to the locker room and cries.

---

When Claire finally stops crying, her Sidekick is blinking, but she doesn't check to see who the message is from; she knows automatically that it's Zach.

Walking out of the locker room, she shivers from the cold. It's gotten dark now; the stadium lights shine dimly on the football field. She reaches the corner of the field where she had been teaching the squad a new cheer only a couple hours before, and rolls her eyes angrily - the stupid bitches have left the boombox on the field. _And they say my head is in the clouds?_ she thinks.

She tosses her backpack over her shoulder and picks up the boombox with one hand, slowly walking in a daze, losing herself, as always, in thoughts of Nathan and Peter and the family that she could have had. Claire brings up a hand to wipe away a tear from her face - God, she'd thought she was _done_ crying for one night - and sniffs loudly.

Everything is all her fault. She's a freakshow that can bring herself back from the dead, and she's put everyone she's ever loved in danger because of it. She'd tried to kill Brody, had been the reason for Jackie's death. She couldn't bring herself to shoot Peter, and now he and Nathan are dead. She hadn't even been successful at being a good cheerleader, and now she has _nothing_.

The light coming from her bag starts to annoy her and she pulls out her blinking Sidekick, flipping it open. Zach has left her ten messages, all of them saying the same thing.

---

_**To: ClaireBearCheerleader  
From: FilmsByZach**___

I don't know where you are right now, but you need to get home ASAP.

---

Rolling her eyes, she shoves the Sidekick back in her bag; he's probably found out how to do something new and geeky on his computer.

"Claire?" says a voice through the darkness.

"What?" she says back, like a reflex.

A pause.

Slowly, she looks up, and all the air seems to leave her lungs when she sees the person standing not even five feet away from her.

"Peter?" 


	4. Reunion

**A/N: **Thanks to everybody who's reading the story on this site! I have up to chapter twelve posted on another site and will continue to post it regularly here. I'm glad that you like it so far. 

**Chapter Four - Reunion**

She blinks.

There he is, standing right _there_. After nearly a month, Peter Petrelli is standing before her. She can't believe it.

She blinks again.

He's still there. 

The shock racks over her body violently and she can't move. She feels as if someone's punched her in the stomach, as if she's falling off of a particularly high bridge over and over without actually hitting the ground. The boombox in her hand slips from her grasp, but she doesn't even notice until Peter's hand shoots forward, telikinetically stopping it from crashing down onto her foot.

"Thanks," she rasps, still staring at him.

"You're welcome," he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, his eyes not leaving hers.

Claire doesn't know how much time passes; she just can't stop _looking_ at him. He's really alive. He's not an image in her head or a ghostly vision right; he's _real_ and he's right in front of her. Even in the darkness, she can still make out every inch of his face, his crooked mouth, his dark eyes. 

It seems like an eternity passes between them. Claire can feel the tension growing, the moment becoming slowly awkward due to her unabashed staring, and it's the one thing she doesn't want. Letting out a long breath she closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around Peter's waist, clinging tightly to him.

The awkwardness evaporates as soon as she touches him and almost immediately his arms go around her, too, and she shuts her eyes. His head is on top of hers, and hers is on his chest, and she doesn't want to let him go. If only he knew how much she had worried about him, how much she had missed him, how much pain she had been through...

Claire breathes him in, savoring the clean smell of him. He smells like soap and aftershave and something so purely Peter that she can't describe it. It's his scent, more than anything, that assures her for certain that this is really Peter she's hugging, and not some figment of her imagination.

She's not sure which ones of them pulls away first, but she doesn't care. Her arms are still wrapped around his waist, but loosely, and she smiles so widely up at him that she's certain it's a little frightening. But Peter smiles back down at her, and her heart nearly stops beating then and there, and he touches her hair comfortingly.

"We should probably get you home," he says, looking down at his digital watch, glowing green in the night. "Your mom's making dinner."

"What?" Claire says, startled. "How do you - "

"I'll explain on the way," he says, then nods toward her backpack, inside which her Sidekick is still blinking ferociously. "But you should probably let your family know we're coming."

---

_She does, fingers shaking with excitement and relief, and she can barely type._

_**To: LyleTheCrocodile  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

Lyle, Peter's with me. We're coming home.

---

They're walking on the train tracks, the moon illuminating a corner of the sky, and Claire can see her breath in the air. She wishes that she had coat to wear, and it's as if Peter has read her mind (_Can he do that?_ she wonders), because the next second he's asking her if she's cold.

"It's December," she says.

Peter wordlessly takes off his trenchcoat and then he's wrapping it around her shoulders, folding it at the top so it doesn't drag on the ground. Claire smiles to herself, and they keep walking.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she asks a minute later, and Peter lets out what sounds like a sigh. She doesn't want to pressure him or make him talk to her, but she's been worrying about him for what's felt like forever and she thinks she deserves to know _something_.

"What do you want to know?" he asks.

Claire almost stops walking; she's not used to being treated like an adult. Peter's giving her the opportunity to know everything that happened, not just bits and pieces, and she takes the opening. "When did you, you know, heal?"

"This morning," Peter says, wiping his bangs out of his eyes.

Claire looks at him curiously. "It took that long?"

"Well, I exploded," he replies. "My body was in pieces all over the world. They had to...find their way back to each other."

Claire tries not to picture it in her mind; it sounds too disgusting for words. "So how did you get to Texas? Did you fly here or - "

"I woke up here," Peter explains. "My heart was in Odessa." Claire feels so moved by this declaration that she doesn't know how to respond, but he breaks the spell by adding, "My literal heart was here."

"Oh." She pauses. "Weird."

"The next thing I know, I'm in jail - "

"What?" Claire says loudly. "_Why?_"

Peter smirks a little at her eager indignation and Claire shuts her mouth, kicking herself for her somewhat immature outburst. He doesn't say anything, though, and continues. "I was falling all over the place, stumbling a lot. I think my body was just trying to get used to itself again or something, but the cops thought I was drunk. So they pulled me in."

He pauses, as if waiting for her to speak again, but she just looks up at him. "I realized that I was in Odessa, so I called your father. He came and got me out, but you weren't at home. He tried getting in touch with one of your friends - "

"Zach," Claire supplies. He's the only friend she has.

"Yeah, but he didn't know where you were, so I came to find you."

Claire bows her head shyly, touched that even after exploding, Peter had still come after her. 

---

_When they reach her house, all the lights are on and her family is waiting outside for her. Zach is there, too, his video recorder in his hands and he tapes Peter and Claire walking towards them._

"You're such a geek!" Claire exclaims, waving the recorder away, and he laughs, turning it off. She gives Peter an apologetic glance, slightly embarrassed.

Zach jumps up and shakes Peter's hand. "You must be the rich, eccentric uncle," he says with a quirky grin, and Peter looks a little taken aback.

"He's joking," Claire says to Peter, ushering him inside.

When his back is turned, she gives Zach a pointed look and a hard punch to the shoulder. He rubs his arm and moans, "Ow! When are you going to stop doing that?!"

---

Peter excuses himself from the table halfway through dinner and when he still isn't back when dessert rolls around, Claire is worried. She hurries through her marble cake and searches all the rooms of the house before she finds him in her dad's office, staring out of the window.

She walks up next to him, anxiety pulsing through her, and she calls his name out tentatively. He turns around, looks at her, but Claire doesn't think he actually sees her. Twisting her fingers together, she moves a bit closer to him. "Are you okay?" she asks softly.

His stare has gone back to the dark sky outside, and she knows without asking that he's thinking about Nathan. She feels horrible, because in her happiness at seeing Peter, she'd completely forgotten about his brother. She doesn't know what to say, has never been good at comforting people, has never been good at dealing with awkward, emotional moments like this.

"Was there a funeral?" asks Peter, and Claire trembles at the way his voice slightly breaks.

"It was on November 20," she tells him. "It was on the news."

Peter nods resolutely, and Claire says, "I'm so sorry, Peter," trying to hold her resolve.

It's as if her voice shatters him, and Claire feels all her strength crumble away when she sees tears appear in the corners of Peter's brown eyes. She feels her own sliding quickly down her cheeks, but she doesn't wipe them away. In the dim light of the study, she reaches out to him, resting her small hand on his arm.

"He was my hero." His voice is quiet, but the words hold so much love behind them that Claire's heart breaks. She can relate to that, can relate to losing her hero, but the difference is that hers is back, and Peter's never will be.

The next second, Peter's face is twisting in an attempt to keep from breaking down, and Claire can't stand to see it. She doesn't want to see him this way, can't bare it, and she thinks maybe he should be alone for this, that he doesn't want her to see him like this. She tears her gaze away from him, makes a couple steps toward the door, but he tugs slightly at the sleeve of her cheerleading uniform, stopping her.

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking.

"I'm sorry," he echoes her, and she doesn't really know what they're apologizing for, but it doesn't really matter because the only thing she can focus on is that Peter's wiping away her tears again, for the third time in the short space of time that they've known each other, and Claire feels like she should return the gesture.

Her fingers trace away his tears, and she's touching his face in a way that she's never touched anyone's. Her heart is pounding, she's holding her breath, and all that she cares about is taking away the sad look on her uncle's face.

Peter's hands are mapping her face, as if trying to memorize the way she looks in case he loses her, too, and she can feel something snap inside of him. He pulls her to him, and Claire doesn't protest, just hugs him back, her arms squeezing him tightly. It's different from the hug shared only a few hours before; where that one was comfortable, familiar, thankful, this one is awkwardly placed elbows, scratchy fabric and utter desperation.

---

_Claire doesn't hear Zach come in, ready to tell her that he's going home. She doesn't see his nod of understanding, or the way he quietly slips out of the room, shutting the door gently behind him._

---

Claire can't let him sleep on the couch, not after all he's been through, so she brings Peter upstairs to her bedroom. She clears all the teddy bears from her bed, tossing them in different sections of her room instead.

"I like bears," she says, her voice strained. It's the first words spoken between them since the moment shared in her father's study.

Peter doesn't say anything. He looks around her room, with approval or disdain she doesn't know. She watches him, and she feels exposed by the way his eyes take in the jewelry on her dresser, the open jar of face cream on top of her TV, the clothes hanging on her chair, the sticky notes on her desk, her lava lamp.

It's unnerving; she clears her throat lightly and Peter looks back at her. She gestures awkwardly to the bright pink pillows on her bed.

"Thanks," says Peter, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes.

"We're family," she says, shrugging her shoulders and smiling very slightly.

He doesn't smile back and she doesn't expect him to, not when he's still raw with emotion over Nathan. Claire goes to her dresser, takes out some pajamas for herself, and plucks a ponytail holder from the nightstand by the bed.

"If you need anything, I'll be downstairs," she says, hovering nervously by the door. "Goodnight, Peter."

When he doesn't say anything, just sits there on her bed staring towards the window, she leaves the room. Pressing her back against the door softly once it's closed, Claire shuts her eyes, trying to erase the image of a crying Peter from her mind.

"Goodnight, Claire." It's a whisper from inside her room, and Claire doesn't know if Peter's actually said it, or if she's just hearing things, but it's soothing to her.

When she lays down on the couch a few minutes later, she sighs. She knows that Peter's not going to sleep well tonight and she probably won't either. She can't even fathom the emotional battle he's going to go through in the upcoming days, but at least he won't be alone. Not like she was.

"Thanks for bringing him back," she whispers sleepily, not really knowing who she's talking to. It could be God or it could be Nathan, or it could be no one at all.

She pulls the blankets around her and shifts on the couch. It's uncomfortable; the couch is lumpy and smells like old dust, but that's okay, because for the first time since coming back to Odessa, Claire feels at home. 


	5. Back To New York

**A/N:** Thanks so much to everyone who's enjoying this fic so far! Expect this fic to be updated in waves.  I really appreciate all of your comments!

**Chapter Five - Back to New York**

The sunlight is streaming through the window of her bedroom, bathing Peter Petrelli's face in yellow shades, and Claire is trying her hardest not to make noise. She opens the drawers to her dresser as slowly as possible, wincing as slight creaking sounds echo throughout the room. When Peter stirs slightly in his sleep, she freezes, her hand clutching a blue hoodie, her eyes shut, hoping that he doesn't wake up.

She continues to collect things from her room - shoes, earrings, pencil case - and she starts to smile as she reaches the door, pleased that she hasn't disturbed him at all. Her hand is on the door when his voice mumbles, "Claire?"

_Damn it._ "Morning," she says as he turns to face her, looking utterly exhausted.

"Mmm," he says, burying his face back into her pillow.

"I just had to get some things for school," she says. She goes over to the curtains and shuts them to keep the light from coming inside the room. "You just go back to sleep."

But Peter has already sat up, holding his head in his hands. "No," he says, pushing his bangs out of his face. "I have to leave."

He climbs out of the bed and she notices that he's still fully clothed. She herself is still wearing pajamas; a light pink set with yellow ducks on the pants. But attire is not what she's focusing on right now. She stares at him blankly. "Leave?"

Peter walks around the room, his eyes searching for something. "Where are my - ?"

Claire holds up his shoes, and he smirks slightly. "Thanks," he says, going to reach for them.

She pulls the shoes to her chest just as his fingers graze the shoelaces. "What do you mean, you're leaving?" she says.

He rolls his eyes, probably at her childish, holding-his-shoes-hostage-trick, but she can't care less. "I have to go home, Claire," he says tiredly. "My life is in New York."

"Well - " she starts, not sure how to express herself. She is silent and Peter takes this as a cue to reach for his shoes again, but she yanks them backwards. "What about me?" she shoots out, and she knows she sounds selfish. But he's been out of her life for a month, thought to be _dead_, and now that he's back he wants to vanish again? "I'm your niece."

A somewhat pained expression crosses his face and Claire knows she's inadvertently reminded him of Nathan, but it needed to be said. Peter is her _family_, he can't just leave her, not after all they've been through, and certainly not after they've just found each other again.

"I know, Claire," he says, sounding frustrated. "But your life is here."

His words feel sharp and painful and her chest actually aches at hearing them. She's hurt for reasons she can't understand and she feels tears sparkle in her eyes.

She can feel the heat rise to her cheeks as she snaps, "Fine." In her anger she throws Peter's shoes at him, one of them hitting him in the face, and runs out of the room.

---

Claire scoffs, and slams the locker door.

---

Claire's mood has changed from "angry and frustrated" to "sad and mopey" by lunch, and when her last class of the day rolls around, she just prays for the day to be over so she can go home and crawl in bed.

She tries to work hard on the math problems in front of her, but even on a good day she sucks at math, and the fact that she can't solve one question makes things worse. Sighing, she scoots back in her chair defeatedly, flinging the pencil she's holding down on her desk. _Good riddance._

"Hey, do you need help?" a voice asks, and Claire turns around. Behind her is the boy from yesterday who gave her his chocolate milk. He's leaning his chair towards hers, a genuine, non-judgmental look on his face.

"There's no point," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm a hopeless case."

"Nah, I doubt that," he replies, smiling a bit. "I'm West, by the way."

"Claire."

He pulls up his chair next to hers. "What problem are you on?" he asks.

"Number one," she tells him pointedly, her eyebrows raised slightly to show him that, really, she's not joking, she's utterly hopeless when it comes to math.

He helps her anyway.

---

"He's not abandoning you," says Zach, in the way that he does when he thinks she's being melodramatic. "He's right, he does have a life there. Not to mention his mom."

"Oh, right," she says sarcastically. "How could I forget about the woman who wanted him to explode?"

Zach grins. "It'll be fine, Claire. Look, I got to go hang out with the other film geeks for a couple hours, but I'll see you later, okay?"

---

She's just stepped outside, staring at her feet as she walks, when she hears someone call her name. Looking up, she sees Peter at the bottom of the steps.

Surprised, Claire stops where she is, and folds her arms across her chest. She doesn't speak, waiting for him to apologize or explain himself, preferably both.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" he asks abruptly.

"What?" she asks. This doesn't sound like the beginnings of an apology to her.

"I called you."

"I was in school. We're not supposed to have them turned on."

"Oh."

"Peter, what - "

"Nathan's alive," he says hurriedly, not giving her room to interject. "He's in a coma."

"I want to go to New York with you," she says immediately, running down the steps.

"I know, that's why I'm here," Peter says, a smirk on his face. "I already talked to your father, it's all taken care of."

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

---

The only way to describe the plane ride to New York is tense.

Despite their joint relief in Nathan being alive, she still can't help feeling bitter about the fact that Peter was going to ditch her. Peter seems to be aware of this and hasn't said a word to her since boarding, with the exception of, "Do you want peanuts?" when the waitress swung by.

Claire looks fixedly out of the window at the vast whiteness and clouds below, wondering if Nathan had ever flown this high.

"He did, when we saved the world," says Peter and she looks at him almost accusingly.

_So he can read minds_, she confirms to herself.

"Sorry," he says, not looking up from the car magazine he's reading and certainly not giving off the impression that he's sorry.

_How many other thoughts of mine has he heard?_ she thinks angrily.

"I can't control it," he continues, finally looking at her.

"Maybe you should learn," she retorts.

---

When they walk into Nathan's hospital room, the first thing that Claire notices is Angela Petrelli standing in the corner of the room, sitting primly in a chair, reading a book.

"Ma," says Peter, his voice crackling with emotion, and the woman tosses the book to the side. Mother and son hug, and it makes Claire feel slightly sick.

Peter pulls away from the hug and rushes over to Nathan. Her bio-dad is hooked up to a machine, tubes in his nose and arms, stripping him of his former intimidating and powerful demeanor. She looks away quickly when Peter kisses his brother's cheeks and holds his hand; it's too personal and she feels like an intruder.

This feeling is only intensified when she notices her grandmother staring at her. The expression on her face can't be called a glare; it's too polite for that, but Claire catches the meaning all the same. She's not wanted here.

"Claire," the older woman says with a cursory nod, her lips pursed together so tightly that her mauve lipstick looks pink.

Claire nods in return, and it is then that another woman enters the room. Claire recognizes her as Nathan's wife, but is a little surprised that she's walking; the last time she saw her, albeit from the middle of a staircase, she was rolling around in a wheelchair.

"Peter," Heidi says, rushing over to him.

"Heidi?" gasps Peter, eyes fixed on her legs.

"I know," she says, grinning, and they hug. She then she turns to Claire. "Who's this?"

Claire feels her heart sink a little; Nathan hadn't told his wife about her and apparently Angela and Peter hadn't either. "She's Peter's friend," her grandmother lies smoothly, and Claire looks at Peter incredulously, but he's staring at the floor.

"Where was he found?" Peter asks, changing the subject back to Nathan.

"He came right to the door of the house," says Angela, and Claire doesn't know if it's pride or amusement she detects in the woman's voice. "And then he collapsed, so we brought him here."

Peter smiles a little. "So he was awake today, then," he confirms.

Claire spots the confused look on Heidi's face before the woman even speaks. "No, that was three weeks ago," she says, glancing over at Angela.

"_What?!_" says Claire loudly, her nostrils flaring.

All eyes are turned on her grandmother now. "Why didn't you tell Claire?" Peter asks, confused, and sounding a bit hurt on her behalf.

"Why would she need to know?" says Heidi, totally out of the loop.

"Claire didn't need to know," says Angela plainly, "She was with her family."

"I thought _you_ were my family," Claire spits out angrily, taking a few steps towards her. "At least, that's what you told me right before I jumped out of the window!"

"I was wrong," says Angela, still calm as ever.

"Nathan is my _father_!" she exclaims. "I deserved to know! I called you, and you wouldn't let me come to the funeral - "

"Why not?" says Peter, eyes on his mother, and he sounds irritated.

" - and how could you have known for all this time and not told me? I'm his daughter."

She breathes heavily and it's like a giant wave of pressure has rolled off of her, but at the same time she feels utterly stupid for breaking down in this way. The room is silent, filled with a thick tension that slices through all of them.

Heidi breaks the silence. "Did...did you two know about this?" Her gaze remains on the floor.

"Yeah," whispers Peter, placing a hand on his sister-in-law's shoulder, but she shrugs away his touch and walks out of the room stiffly, her eyes shining.

When she's gone, Angela rounds on Claire. "Was that really necessary?" she asks, the ice in her voice not even disguised.

"Ma, leave her alone," Peter snaps. "Heidi will be okay."

"But you wouldn't have told her, would you?" says Claire, glaring at him, lest he forget that she's upset with him, too. "About me? Neither of you would have. You don't want me in this family. Well, guess what? I don't want to _be_ in this family."

"Claire - "

"Did you know that she was just going to let you _die_?" Claire says, tears starting to finally wash down her cheeks. "That she knew about the bomb all along and was willing to let you explode so that the world would turn to Nathan? And that she knew about _me_ all along, and kept me and Nathan apart for all these years?"

The expression on Peter's face is heartbreaking, but Claire doesn't regret her words. She's not saying it to hurt him because she's mad at him, she's saying it because he needs to know the truth.

Peter looks up at his mother, silently asking her if this is true, and it all seems to hit him at once. His jaw tightens, his eyes darken, and his whole body seems to go rigid. And then he gets up and storms out of the room in the same way Heidi did.

Claire wipes her tears away the second Peter has left the room. She refuses to cry in front of Angela now that they're the only people left in the room. If this woman wants a battle of wills, Claire is determined to hold her own and not cry like a baby.

But her grandmother doesn't say the harsh words that Claire expects to come pouring out of her mouth. She simply walks over to Nathan and smoothes his hair away from his face, then picks up her tossed book from the chair and halts by the door, turning around slowly.

"Despite what you may think, I'm not the bad guy here," she says, suddenly looking much older, and she gives Claire a sad smile before closing the door behind her.


	6. Peter's Hair

**Chapter Six - Peter's Hair**

_Knock_.

Claire barely hears the person at the door and rolls over.

_Knock_.

There it is again. Why is anyone knocking at her door this early in the morning?

_Knock Knock_.

She groans. "Leave me alone," she says, but it comes out as more of a, "Llllmmppphhhh."

_Knockknockknocknockknockknock_.

Kicking off the covers, she staggers over to the bedroom door and opens it, blinking sleepily. "Peter, what are you doing?" she gets out, her voice cracking with tiredness.

"It's almost eleven," he says, punctuating the statement by glancing down at his watch. At Claire's look, he says, "I made breakfast if you want some."

"Okay," she says, scratching her head. _I wonder if Angela's here_, she wonders as she closes the door.

She can hear Peter's footsteps moving downstairs when he calls out, "She's not! It's just you and me!"

_Stay out of my head, Peter!_

"I'm trying!"

She rolls her eyes. She pulls on a robe and slides into slippers before joining him.

---

"They suck."

"That bad?"

"Yeah."

"Is Peter still avoiding you?"

"Yeah. Although he did make me breakfast this morning, which was sweet."

"What did he make?"

"Chocolate pancakes."

"Wow, he knows the way to your heart."

"Oh, totally."

"So are you still mad at him?"

"No, it's kind of hard to stay mad at him when his brother's in a coma. Besides, I think maybe it was, you know, maybe a little selfish in wanting him to stay with me. But I'm here now, so everything's okay."

"Except for the fact that he's avoiding you."

"Yeah."

"I think he's just trying to get used to the fact that his mom's a bitch."

"..."

"Zach?"

"..."

---

It's been two days since Claire's outburst in Nathan's hospital room, declaring that she was his daughter in front of his unknowing wife, and not so kindly informing Peter that his mother had wanted him to explode.

Heidi's been perfectly nice to her, surprisingly not holding the fact that she is the product of "Nathan's folly in Texas" over her head. Angela chooses not to speak to her, which doesn't bother her too much. But Peter hasn't been acting in any way toward her at all; he's been avoiding her. Breakfast this morning was the most time they'd spent in a room together since Claire's revelation speech (or so she likes to call it in her head) and he'd said three words to her: "Like the pancakes?"

She sits on the couch in front of the television set, her half-brothers playing with toy trucks at her feet and Heidi reading a newspaper in the corner of the room, one eye watching them.

"Are we going to visit Nathan today?" Claire asks.

Heidi looks up from the paper and peers at her through her reading glasses. "Sure. If you want to go."

"Yeah." Claire goes back to watching the TV.

"Uncle Peter! Uncle Peter!" Monty says loudly, but he doesn't jump up to greet his uncle. Instead, he points at him. Simon starts to laugh.

Claire looks up to see what the fuss is about and bites her lip. Peter has cut his hair, almost all of it. It's shaved close to his head, spiked just a little at the front. Gone are his long black bangs.

"Wow, it's short," says Heidi, setting the paper aside.

Peter looks down at the boys. "What do you guys think?"

"You look a lot like daddy now," says Simon, and Claire has to agree.

"Speaking of which, boys, Claire wants to go see him, so why don't we all get ready?" Heidi leads the boys out of the room, leaving Peter and Claire alone.

Peter turns his head toward her as they leave. "What?" he says when he notices her staring, and she can barely open her mouth to form a coherent thought. It's not that his hair is _bad_ looking, it's just so _different_ and so not _Peter_ and it's a bit startling.

"I think I'll miss the bangs," she says truthfully.

Peter smiles slightly. "I already do," he tells her. "But, you know, it was getting in my face all the time. Kind of hard to see things."

Claire bows her head, smirking, and Peter clears his throat. She can already tell what he's going to say before he says it. "You don't have to apologize," she says quietly, twisting her hands in her lap. "It's okay."

"No, it's not okay," he says, crouching down on the floor so that she's actually looking down at him. She lifts her head slightly and she's staring right into eyes, which seem so much more penetrating now that he doesn't have locks of hair covering them. "You just told me the truth and I didn't know how to deal with it. I shouldn't have avoided you."

"I'm sorry I said I didn't want to be a part of this family," she says.

Peter lets out a tutting nose. "Please, half the time _I_ don't want to be a part of this family."

Claire stares at his hair again, still completely taken aback by his lack of it. "Can I - ?" she starts, and he nods, undoubtedly reading her thoughts. She wishes he wouldn't do that, but at the moment she's not too concerned about it.

She touches him tentatively; rests her hands on the top of his head first, then slowly moves her fingers down the sides, feeling the strands between her fingers. He has _really_ soft hair, she muses as she brings her hands to his forehead and plays with the tiny spiked hairs in the front.

"Hey, did you gel?" she asks, pulling away.

He stands up, touching the back of his head. "Yeah, a little. Too much?"

She shakes her head, standing up, too. "No, it's good."

Just then, Heidi walks in. "Are you guys ready? The boys are already in the van, we're just waiting on you."

Picking up the remote, Claire turns off the TV that she had forgotten was still on.

"Ready," Peter nods.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

---

Claire calls her father after they get back from visiting Nathan and talks to him for an hour. She's only been to see Nathan three times (and she's been in New York for four days), but every time she does, she feels like a part of her is betraying her real dad. It's a silly and irrational guilt, but it's there nonetheless.

She was always a daddy's girl, so full of love for him that at times she thought it might burst out of her. He was the one who brought her teddy bears from around the world, who listened to her complain about boys, who kissed her scrapes when she fell, who was always there to hug her when she cried. He sacrificed his life so many times to save her and protect her, even when their relationship was a broken mess.

And now she feels like she's ruining that somehow. When she's on the way to visit Nathan or spending time with her half-brothers, it's as if she's falling faster away from her family in Texas, replacing them. Sometimes she regrets ever having sought out her birth parents in the first place, of showing up on Peter Petrelli's doorstep and learning that he was her uncle.

She tells herself that it's okay to watch over Nathan, that it's alright to drink coffee with Heidi and get to know her, because, even though they are her family, they don't _feel_ that way. Heidi has never tried to mother her and Nathan had always pushed her away before the explosion.

Claire _knows_ that the Petrelli clan will never come close to her family in Texas, but she can't help feeling guilty anyway.

"I miss you, too," she sighs into the telephone, hiding herself in a corner of the hallway so that none of her bio-family will see her. "Tell mom I said hi. I love you, dad. Okay. Bye." She presses the 'end' button on the telephone and walks into the living room, setting the phone down softly.

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

---

She's sitting in a chair outside, popping grapes lazily into her mouth and gazing out into the smoky, city air when Peter finds her. He slips into the chair next to her. "Hey."

"Hey."

"What are you doing?" he asks, taking a grape from her bowl.

Claire shrugs. "Just thinking, I guess."

"About what?"

"Can't you just read my mind?"

"Do you want to talk about whatever's bothering you?"

Claire shrugs again. She doesn't want him to read her mind and she doesn't want to talk to him about how she's been feeling lately, but there's something inside her that can't deny Peter, no matter how much she wants to. When she talks, he listens. He actually treats her like an adult and _listens_, not judging, not trying to give her advice or tell her what she's feeling is wrong. And she knows that everything she says to Peter he'll keep safe, just between the two of them.

He's looking at her, genuinely curious and serious, his eyes trained on hers, waiting for her to speak. She twists her hands together, then musters up the courage to meet his gaze for a second before looking down at her lap.

"I don't even know where to start," she sighs. "I just...I miss my family. And I don't feel at home here. Everything's awkward and your mother hates me. Heidi puts up with me, but I don't know why she does. I mean, I'm Nathan's illigetimate daughter. And if Nathan ever wakes up, I don't even know if he'll want me here either, so I kind of feel like I'm just this huge burden. I mean, he wasn't exactly happy before, you know? And...I really wish he was awake so I could find out if he wants me to stay or if he wants me to leave, 'cause it's so frustrating not knowing."

Claire pauses, glancing up at Peter. She knows that he loves his brother and probably doesn't want to hear bad things about him, but Claire can't help how she feels. She waits for Peter to respond, but he doesn't, just continues to look at her as if she's the most curious thing he's ever seen.

Claire swallows, wondering if she shouldn't have told him her feelings. But then he says, in a firm voice, "You're not a burden," and she's glad that she did.

---

_**To: LyleTheCrocodile  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**_

I'm going shopping in New York today. Peter and Heidi are taking me. Do you want anything?

No, I will not ask Peter to pick up a Playboy for you. Ew. Pervert.

---

Claire's in the dressing room, a shirt over her head, when she hears Peter's cell phone ring from outside the door.

"What?" she hears him say in a confused voice, as she looks at herself in the mirror. She frowns, opening the door.

"Does this make me look fat?" she asks.

Peter ignores her ("No, I haven't seen him either," he says, walking away from the sound of Claire's voice), but Heidi shakes her head vehemently. "Of course not, Claire."

She goes back into the dressing room and shrugs out of her current pair of jeans - all torn up at the bottom edges because they were too long - and slides into another pair. As she buttons them, she can hear Peter's voice echoing throughout the small, cramped room. "No, no, I'm sure he's okay."

Claire smoothes out the creases in the jeans and gives a nod of approval. She likes these.

"Where are you? Isaac's loft? Okay."

Claire tries on a dress next, a short sundress dress that shouldn't even be on the sales rack because it's blistering cold outside. She tries it on anyway, smiling lightly; yellow is definitely her color. When she opens the door to show Heidi how she looks (just to get a second opinion), Peter's loud, strained yell takes her mind off of clothes.

"What do you mean, Isaac's dead?" he says into the phone, gripping it so tightly his knuckles turn white. Claire stares at him, notes how his eyes have darkened. She wants to ask him what's going on. "Sylar... No, calling the police was the right thing to do. I'll come meet you, alright? Stay there."

He flips the cell phone shut and pauses only for a second, sucking in a deep breath, before turning to Claire and Heidi. "I have to go, I'm sorry," he says, moving towards the exit.

"Hey!" says Claire fiercely, grabbing his arm and pulling him around to face her. "What about Sylar? Who were you talking to? Who's Isaac?" She lets go of him, but her heart still races with adrenaline. "I want to come with you."

Peter looks at her knowingly. He gestures hurriedly to the dressing room door. "Go change. Ando's waiting."

Claire wastes no time, peeling off the dress and rushing to put her own clothes on, feeling an intense knot form in her stomach. After banging out of the dressing room door and waving goodbye to a bewildered Heidi, she catches up to Peter's long strides.

"So, wait," she says, practically running to keep up with him now, "who the hell is Ando?"


	7. Meetings

**Chapter Seven - Meetings**

Claire stares out the window of the taxicab, her mind reeling from everything that Peter's just told her. It's so much information, almost too much to process.

"So," she starts slowly, "Ando is the friend of the guy who came from the future to tell you to save me?" 

"Yeah."

When they had first met, Peter talked about saving her in order to save the world, but Claire hadn't understood it. She hadn't known that someone had come from the future and instructed Peter to save her; she hadn't known it was even _possible_ to time travel. And apparently now this man, the present form of him anyway, is missing.

Claire thinks back to the message Peter had received, the one that is important somehow. "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." It confuses her. What does it even mean and why is _she_ so important?

"So...has the world been saved yet?" She lets out a squeak as the taxicab drives over a particularly hard bump.

"I've been wondering that since the moment I met you," Peter says wryly, and though she's still gazing out at the New York streets, not looking at him, she can feel him turn his head to stare out of his own window.

"And Isaac's the one who could paint the future? He's the one you got the power from?"

"Yup," he says, his voice tense.

Claire sighs and sinks back in her seat, not wanting to ask any more questions at the moment. She doesn't know how Peter knew Isaac or if they were good friends, but her uncle is clearly upset by the painter's death and she doesn't want to cause him any more pain. _He's dealing with enough right now_, she thinks, an image of a comatose Nathan flashing in her mind.

---

When they reach their destination, Peter pays the driver and opens the door for her. Claire crawls out of the sticky, leathered backseat and once again struggles to keep up with him.

They round street corners and finally come across the the loft that belonged to Isaac Mendez. It's dirty looking and a blacky bluish hue stains the building's exterior. Claire briefly thinks that if she was stuck in a place that looked as depressing as this, she'd probably turn into a heroin addict, too.

Her eyes are soon blinded by an array of red and blue police lights, coming from parked cars littering the front of the cramped street. Among the police officers and the vivid yellow tape, Claire spots a Japanese man looking completely out of his element with a sad expression on his face.

"Ando," Peter says, noticing him as well and walking up to him. Ando throws his arms around Peter in a hug and Claire can't help but smile at the surprised look on Peter's face.

"So glad to see you!" says Ando in a heavy, but still understandable accent. "I wait here for hours. Look everywhere for Hiro, but he is nowhere to be found. He tell me to let him complete mission on his own - to kill Sylar - and I left to go home in Japan. But he never came back. So I come here to see Mr. Isaac, but his head is split in two. Then I call you."

Peter nods, and Claire feels her stomach roll over with the description of Isaac's death. "He must have killed Isaac before he killed Ted," she whispers to herself, shivering slightly.

"Don't worry, Ando," says Peter bracingly to the other man. "We'll find Hiro."

"How?" Ando says, his face falling.

He looks like a lost puppy and though she's never even met him before, she wants desperately to help him. And then the answer comes to her. "The tracking system," she blurts out suddenly. "There's a tracking system here in the city." She nods to Peter. "I was going to use it to find you."

Ando turns toward her, his eyebrows raising. "Who are you?" he asks, looking confused.

Peter, however, throws her a look that makes _her_ feel confused. It's a look he's given her a couple times now, a look that says he's surprised and perhaps a little awed by her. Claire recognizes it because it's the same one she gives him all the time. She's never had anyone look at her like this before and it's a bit unnerving because she can't understand why Peter _would_; it's not like she's done anything special.

"My name is Claire," she says to Ando, extending her hand for him to shake.

"Claire's the cheerleader," Peter elaborates, finally moving his gaze away from her, and dawning comprehension spreads across Ando's face.

"Oh, Cheerleader Claire!" he grins. "Hiro would be very happy that you're alive."

At that moment, the sound of wheels on cracked pavement can be heard and Claire sees a white stretcher being rolled outside. Her eyes seek Peter instantly, whose face has completely darkened. She wants to comfort him, but she doesn't know how.

"The tracking system," Claire says, opting instead to draw Peter's attention back to the task at hand. "It finds people like us, people with powers. My dad was going to destroy it because he thought it would protect me. I don't know if he did... but if he didn't, we can find it and use it to find your friend."

"Sounds like a good plan," Ando says, nodding emphatically, but Claire glances up at Peter, wanting his approval.

"I guess you'd better call your dad, then," he says, handing her his cell phone.

---

The phone call with her father is quick and hurried. Claire walks away from Peter and Ando, needing to put some distance between herself and the loud chatter of the police officers. As her father starts to talk about the tracking system, her phone starts to fuzz with static. "Damn it. Dad? Can you hear me? Wait, what did you say?"

When she walks back to Peter and Ando, they look at her questioningly. "I could barely hear him. All I got from him was something about a guy named Mohinder Suresh." 

Peter takes the phone from her hands and Claire notes with incredulity that all he does is hit a number on his speed dial.

---

They're in another taxicab, it's only 4:30, and Claire already feels exhausted. Ando is sitting next to her, drumming his fingers anxiously against the seat, while Peter is perfectly still in the passenger's seat.

It takes only ten minutes to reach Mohinder's apartment. She and Ando follow Peter through the hallways and up sets of stairs until he finally stops and knocks on a door.

A little girl with wide eyes and long brown hair opens the door, to everyone's surprise. "Who are you?" she asks, not rudely, as she stares up at Claire, Peter, and Ando.

"We're looking for Mohinder Suresh," Claire says.

"He still lives here, doesn't he?" asks Peter.

But the girl doesn't answer. Instead, her gaze is focused on Peter. Her forehead wrinkles in concentration, as if she's trying to place him. "Wait, I know you!" she exclaims suddenly, and Claire exchanges a bewildered look with Peter.

"How?" he says.

"Your hands were glowing," the girl declares. "I saw you! And that man took you up into the sky, he flew." Her eyes turn to Claire. "You were there, too!" And then her eyes fall on Ando. "You weren't."

Before any of them can say anything, she's run inside the apartment. They can hear her calling for Mohinder, and then a few moments later, a young Indian man is standing at the door, a tired, slightly baffled expression on his face. Then, "Peter!"

"Mohinder," Peter acknowledges, and quickly the other man opens the door, allowing them all to come inside.

They all stand around awkwardly in Mohinder's living room for what seems like hours. Mohinder is gaping at Peter, the girl at his side darting her head from him to the others and back to him again, and Ando catches Claire's eye as they wait for someone to say something. Just as she thinks this, Peter starts to speak.

"Uh, this is Ando," he says, gesturing toward the man. "And this is Claire." Mohinder nods, but still appears confused, so Peter elaborates. "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World? Claire was the cheerleader."

Claire smirks. "They kicked me off the squad, though." Peter glances at her bemusedly and she kicks herself for saying something so stupid. _You're such a dork_.

"Anyway," continues Peter, "we came because we need to find Hiro Nakumara. He's the one who came from the future and told me to save Claire. Claire's father said you know where a tracking system is. A tracking system that finds people like us."

Mohinder puts his hands on the shoulders of the girl in front of him. "This is Molly Walker. She can...find people."

The girl smiles widely, and Claire blinks in surprise. "A little girl?" says Ando. "She is the tracking system?"

Claire grimaces slightly. This girl, Molly, probably doesn't appreciate being referred to as a tracking system any more than Claire appreciated being called a harddrive. And then it dawns on her; her father had planned on _killing_ this girl. Claire feels a tiny knot well up in her chest. _He must not have known that she was a kid_, she thinks, wondering if her father would ever go that far just to protect her. Obviously he hadn't, because Molly is here staring at them all while clutching Mohinder's hands.

"I think of people and then I find them," Molly says, and Mohinder squeezes her shoulders gently.

"That's so cool," says Ando, grinning. "You find Hiro?"

Mohinder shakes his head with reluctance. "It takes a lot out of Molly to locate others. It makes her weak. She's already ill - "

"I can do it Mohinder," says Molly, turning around and looking up at him, her hands still on his. "I can find their friend. I think I'm strong enough now."

Claire glances over at Peter, who hasn't said a word. She steps closer to him when she sees that his eyes are closed completely, and his breathing is slow and labored. "Peter, are you okay?" she asks worriedly, watching him. The others watch along with her as Peter stands rigid, then finally, opens his eyes and lets out a sigh. "I couldn't find him," he says.

"What?" says Ando.

Something clicks for Claire. "He can absorb other people's powers," she explains to him, then turns to Peter. "You just tried to use Molly's power to find Hiro, right?" Her uncle gives her an appreciative look.

Molly, however, is raising her eyebrows disdainfully. "You can't do it like that," she says. "It's not that easy."

Peter gives Molly one of his cute lopsided smiles and sticks his hands in his pockets, looking properly abashed. "How would you like to show me, then?" he asks.

Molly rivals his smile with one of her own and Claire thinks it's probably the most adorable thing she's ever seen, but Mohinder interrupts.

"I don't think so," he says. "Perhaps when Molly is feeling better, but not until then."

Claire can practically feel herself deflate, along with Peter, Ando, and Molly.

"But there's something else that all of you should know," he says, his face taut with seriousness. "Sylar's still alive."

---

She leaves Mohinder's apartment feeling numb inside. They've all spent the past three hours talking about Sylar. Apparently Hiro hadn't killed him after all. His body had been nowhere to be found at Kirby Plaza and just two days ago, a woman had been found with her head split open and her brain removed.

She feels unsafe again. Sylar is probably the only one who can kill her, and it terrifies her. He has already tried to kill her so many times already, and he'll probably come after again, not to mention countless others. She's gotten used to not being chased by a pyscho killer and the thought that he was never really gone scares her to death.

Claire kicks herself for not double checking that Sylar was dead the night that Peter had exploded. She had been there, _right there_ at the scene and she hadn't even noticed that there had been no body where Sylar's stabbed form had fallen. True, her mind had been on other things, but it was such a stupid thing not to notice.

"Don't blame yourself," Peter says in a low voice to her as they walk down the stairs leading out of the apartment.

Claire nods, but she can't help but think that this is her fault, at least a little. She glimpses over at Ando, who looks as depressed as she feels. Claire empathizes with him completely; she knows what it's like to lose your best friend. She'll never forget the horrible emotions that raced through her when she found out that Zach had had his memory erased. While that had been bad enough, she wouldn't know how to react if he'd actually been _missing_.

The only glimmer of hope that Claire has at the moment is that Molly Walker will soon get better and that Peter will learn how to use power. Then they can find Hiro and save the world again.

The three of them step outside, and Claire cries out in shock. It had been bitingly cold before, but now it's actually _snowing_. And it's gotten even colder outside, to the point that Claire feels like she's water that's going to turn into an ice cube very soon. Her teeth to chatter instantly as she wraps her arms around herself. Ando is shivering, too, but Peter acts as if this is totally normal. He stands on the sidewalk looking utterly unaffected as they wait for a cab.

"Aren't you c-c-cold?" she says, feeling the snow fall into her hair and melt. Peter shrugs. Claire shivers, trying to imagine the warm sunshine in Texas.

_This has got to be the worst day ever,_ she thinks to herself. She moves away from Peter and Ando, trying to remain unnoticed as she feels her eyes prickle with hot tears. Sylar's face is stuck in her mind now; the way he had murdered Jackie, the way he had chased her...it's all coming back to her now, not that she had ever really forgotten it, and if there's one thing she can't handle at the moment, it's this.

Claire attempts to wipe the tears away as they fall, trying not to be loud with her sniffling as Peter and Ando talk about Hiro. She doesn't want Peter to see her cry again; she's so _tired_ of people seeing her fall to pieces.

"Claire?" His voice breaks through the sound of the snow pounding on them, and Claire looks up, plastering a smile on her face. She's so used to wearing fake smiles that they almost feel more natural than real ones. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," she says, her tears still wet on her cheeks. "Why w-wouldn't I be?" 

"Come here," he says, gesturing for her to walk over to him, and she does hesitantly. He grips her arms with his hands, keeping her in place. "Don't move," he tells her, and she doesn't. He spreads out his arms and Claire wants to wonder why, but all she can concentrate on is the fact that her feet are so cold she can't feel them.

And then all of a sudden his hands start to spark, which catches her attention, and glow orange, which makes panic rise in her chest. "Peter, what are you doing?!" Claire exclaims, and throws a look over at Ando, who's watching this with a mystified expression.

"I have it under control," Peter says calmly, his hands shaking ever so slightly as they flame up even more, crackling with radiation.

"I don't under - " she begins, but Peter makes a shushing sound, not taking his eyes away from his hands.

"Just stay still," he says, and Claire tries her best not to move a muscle, which she finds difficult to do because she's practically convulsing.

Peter starts to move his hands toward her and she still has no clue what he's doing, but she doesn't say a word. She bites down hard on her lip as Peter's hands stop an inch from where he had gripped her shoulders. Suddenly she feels white-hot energy pulse in her shoulders and he moves his hands down, outlining the shape of her arms, and the energy pulses there, too, and Claire finally gets what he's doing.

Peter's heating her up.

His hands move downward, move down to her waist, down her legs, still an inch away from her body, still not touching her. Claire feels appropriately awkward when he bends his knees, moving his glowing hands around her legs and all the way down to her toes. Wiggling them slightly when they surge with heat, Claire can't help but stare adoringly down at the top of her uncle's head.

"That's so cool," says Ando, and Claire stares at him in surprise, having forgotten that he was there. Peter finally begins his trek upwards, skimming the outsides of her legs again, leaving trails of fire in his wake, and then suddenly his hands are right by her face and Claire can feel her tears dry on her cheeks.

"Better?" Peter asks, looking into her eyes.

"Yeah," she says, her voice breaking.

He pulls his hands away, closes his eyes in concentration, and then suddenly the orange-red glow is gone and Peter's hands are back to normal. Claire wraps her arms around herself again, determined to keep the warmth there.

A tiny smile spreads across her face when a taxicab pulls up and the three of them climb inside.

She thinks that even if today was horrible, complete with missing heroes and killers still on the loose, and even if the days to follow only get worse, at least she'll have Peter there to dry her tears. 


	8. The Truth

**Chapter Eight - The Truth**

She sits in the living room of Peter Petrelli's apartment, eyes closed as she leans against the brown leather of the big, cushy chair she's relaxed in. 

"Claire?"

"Hmm?" she says, eyelids still shut, hands resting on the arms of her (well, Peter's) chair.

"Do you want to play poker?"

Ando's hopeful voice makes Claire open her tired eyes. "Sure," she replies, smiling softly and getting out of the chair as he goes to get the cards.

As she settles herself on the floor, legs crossed, she looks down at her watch. It's almost 11:30 and Peter hasn't come back yet. She and Ando have been waiting for him for an hour as he went to Mohinder's to ask yet again if Molly was healthy enough to teach him how to use her power. Claire hopes that since Peter's been gone this long, this means that Mohinder has given the go ahead.

"Five card stud again?" asks Ando, walking back into the room with the deck of cards in his hands.

The night they had discovered that Sylar was still alive, Ando had randomly told Claire that he loved playing poker, and ever since, they'd been playing constantly. Playing cards helped to ease the anxiousness they both felt; Claire, knowing that the man who had tried to kill her multiple times was still on the loose and Ando, on edge about the fact that his best friend was still nowhere to be found.

Ando had decided to stay in New York until they located Hiro, and Peter had graciously allowed him to stay in his apartment. Claire had spent the past three days with them, happy to be in the company of people that she felt connected to, rather than Heidi, whose kindness was so freely lavished upon her that she felt guilty, and two brothers who didn't really feel like brothers.

"I'm up for anything," she tells Ando, smiling at him. Both of them are actually pretty good poker players - Claire's been playing since she was eleven and Ando's been to Vegas, so they're pretty evenly matched.

She and Ando play three games of poker and just when her watch reads midnight, Claire hears a key in the door and into the apartment comes Peter, looking tired and defeated.

_I guess it didn't go well,_ she thinks as he walks over to them and sits down on the floor.

"Mohinder says Molly's still sick," he says.

"And what does Molly say?" asks Claire.

"That she's not," says Peter, scratching his nose.

Claire rolls her eyes, trying to press down the frustration she feels at Mohinder's overprotective streak towards the little girl. She doesn't understand why Mohinder can't see that finding Hiro Nakumara is so important; he's the one who shoved a sword through Sylar, he's the one that can kill him for good this time. She rather thinks that, at the moment, Mohinder should be worrying about Molly's safety, since she's an obvious target for the psycho killer, instead of her blood cells.

Claire deals out five cards to Peter. "So you'll just ask him again tomorrow, right?" she says.

"Yes," says Ando, "won't you?"

Peter picks up the cards and nods. "Yep."

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

Two more days until I come home. Hopefully Peter can learn Molly's power by then, if Mohinder lets him. I kind of want to see him use it.

---

Claire's never been an eavesdropper. She's always been a big believer in letting people have their privacy, and she was never _that_ much into the gossip thing. But when Peter and Angela lock themselves in the den of the Petrelli mansion, both with calm but anxious expressions on their faces, Claire can't help herself.

Ever since learning that his mother would have let him explode, Peter's been avoiding her, walking out of a room when she enters it, tensing up visibly when her name is mentioned and other such things that suggest he wants to have nothing to do with her. The pain he must feel at her betrayal Claire can't even begin to fathom, and she wonders why he's alright with speaking with her now.

Tiptoeing over to the door, she presses her ear against the door softly and tries to hear any pieces of conversation that she can. For awhile, there's simply silence and Claire can feel the tension between mother and son, even through the closed door. Eventually, though, the two begin to talk in whispers that Claire can't make out. Peter's voice is laced with soft intensity and Claire can feel her heart pounding.

Finally, she hears him say, "I just don't understand" in a louder voice and Claire wonders exactly how Angela is going to explain this, when suddenly someone jabs her in the side.

"You're eavesdropping," says Monty and Claire puts a finger to her lips to mimic silence. Taking him by the shoulder, she attempts to lead him away from the door. He doesn't move an inch, however, and continues loudly, "Why are you?"

The door swings open and Claire jumps in surprise. Peter comes out and meets her eyes; she tries to give him a small smile but instead he gives her an irritated glance. He then turns to his mother and gives her a respectful nod, then walks away and up the stairs. Claire turns to Angela, who's standing in the doorway watching her son bound up the steps, then slowly fixes her gaze on Claire. Claire's eyes narrow at the woman and Angela smirks down at her.

"What did you say to him?" Claire demands, not noticing the curious looks Monty is giving her and her grandmother.

"I told him the truth, Claire," says Angela, in that never-ending calm and patronizing voice of hers.

_Peter can't actually believe that she cares about him, can he?_ Claire thinks. "I don't believe you. Peter wouldn't have just accepted that." She _knows_ that he can't have just forgiven his mother readily; the woman was going to let him _die_.

The older woman places a hand on her shoulder. "Claire," she half-whispers, "despite what you might think in your short time of being a part of this family, I have always been by his side. I have supported him in everything, have loved him more than anyone, and he understands that. Peter is my son and I would do anything for him."

Angela squeezes her shoulder briefly before walking away and Claire looks after her, dumbfounded.

---

_"Maybe she's right."_

"What?"

"Well, she's his mother. You've only seen certain parts of his relationship with her."

"I can't believe you're siding with her. You're supposed to be my friend, Zach."

"I'm not siding with anyone, I'm presenting the objective point of view."

"Whatever. Oh, I'm going to have to talk to you later, okay? I see Peter - "

"Okay, okay. Go talk to him."

"I'll see you tomorrow. Bye."

---

"Hey," she says, unable to keep the nervous twinge out of her voice.

"Hey," says Peter, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing."

He looks skeptical and Claire rolls her eyes slightly; he can read her thoughts for crying out loud, it's not like she can hide anything from him. He has the ability to see through her.

"Okay, something," Claire admits, and Peter smirks slightly into his coffee. "I just...are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you, Claire?"

"You looked mad at me when you came out of the study."

Peter looks at her directly now and Claire feels the nerves inside of her desperately hoping he's not mad at her for some reason. Had Angela said something about her?

"I would have thought you were too old to listen in on other people's conversations," he says.

"So you are mad?"

"No, not mad. I just expected more from you, Claire."

Claire feels like he's twisted a knife inside of her; his opinion of her matters that much. But at the same time, she feels a wave of frustration wash over her. "I don't like being kept in the dark," she says. "I wanted to know what she said to you."

"Why do you need to know?"

"Because I don't trust her," she says bluntly and of course Peter knows who she's talking about.

"The way you didn't trust Nathan?" says Peter softly, and Claire knows that he's not deliberately trying to make her angry, that he's just trying to point out to her that she's been wrong about his (_their_) relatives before, but she's hurt all the same.

"I had no reason to trust Nathan," she defends herself. "He may never have let you down, but he's let me down in the time that I've known him. Saving the world was the only good thing I saw him do. And who knows what he'll be like when he wakes up?" She pauses, Peter's intense eyes locked on hers, genuinely listening the way he always does, and she knows that even if he disagrees with her, he won't hold anything she says against her. "And your mother...nothing she's done has made me trust her. She kept me apart from Nathan all these years, she tried to send me off to Paris, and... I can't forgive her for being able to sit by and watch you die."

"You want me to hate her," Peter says, his fingers sliding idly back and forth over the rim of his coffee cup.

Claire is taken aback by his bluntness. "I... I don't want... why don't you hate her already? How can you be okay with it?"

"She's my mother, Claire. I love her."

"But - "

"Your dad," Peter starts, and Claire already knows where he's going with this. "He lied to you for years about his job. He knew about your power and didn't tell you. He erased the memories of your mom, of your friend, he tried to take away your own memories... but he was looking out for you. And you still trust him, you still love him."

Claire's eyes well with tears when she realizes that what he's saying is completely true.

"Do you seriously think that my mom would have been happy to let me explode if she hadn't been sure that I'd regenerate? She was doing it because she knew the explosion would get people to turn to Nathan. She was doing it because she thought it was best for him. Do I agree with her? Am I happy that she was okay with using me for his gain? No. But I respect it."

He pauses, his face telling her that he truly believes the words she's saying. Claire bites her lip reluctantly and Peter sees it. He lowers his voice, making his next words less defensive and more rational.

"I know she wouldn't purposefully hurt me, the way your dad would never hurt you. She's not a mean hearted person, even if she seems cold. There's a lot of love there, she just shows it in different ways with me and Nathan. I get that."

Claire lets out a sigh, not knowing what to say, and still not fully understanding him. How can he be so forgiving? How can he be so compassionate and noble?

"You don't have to trust her, Claire," he says, taking a gulp of coffee. "You don't even have to like her. But I think it would be nice if you accepted the fact that I do."

Claire nods slowly, reluctantly. Peter walks around the table and grins, not quite allieviating the tension but clearly trying to, and hands her his cup of coffee. "Here, you can finish it," he says, tousling her blonde curls and leaving the kitchen.

---

_"How are you still awake?" He yawns into the phone._

Claire shrugs, even though she knows he can't see it. "I just am, okay? I've been thinking."

"About what?"

"Peter."

"Yeah, like always." Another yawn.

"I was just thinking about how different he is from his family, you know? He's like...the freak in his family, kind of the way I am in mine. I mean, I feel like a freak because I'm the only one with a power and I'm adopted and everything. But with the Petrelli's, Nathan and Angela both have powers, but Peter's still so different from them. He really cares about people."

"Uh huh."

"Do you ever feel like a freak in your family?"

"Claire, everybody feels like a freak. You just have to embrace it, like I always say, you know?"

"Yeah. I know, I know. Okay, you sound like you're going to die on me or something, so I'll let you go to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"..."

"Zach?"

"..."

"Dork."

---

Claire is still awake at five in the morning and she kicks off her covers and starts to head quietly down the stairs. Head swimming with thoughts, she maneuvers around the kitchen, sighing and looking through the cupboards for a midnight snack.

"Claire?" 

She turns around in surprise to see Peter standing in the doorway of the kitchen, completely dressed and staring at her in that weird way of his that she can't figure out. "Hi," she says, smiling. "I couldn't sleep."

"Me neither," he says.

She continues to look at him until the air fills with awkwardness, and then she breaks the silence. "What are you doing up?"

"I wanted to show you something."

"At this hour?"

"Well, it's not like you're sleeping."

He's smirking slightly at her and she realizes that she really likes it when he does that. Nodding her head, she says, "Alright, what do you want me to see?"

"It's outside," he says.

"But it's cold," Claire whines, but Peter's already in the living room. He throws her a jacket and she puts it on, her curiosity getting the best of her. Peter holds out a pair of boots toward her after noticing that her feet are bare and she takes them, wondering if they're his.

"Yeah," he mutters as she ties the shoelaces. "They are."

Claire sighs. "Peter, you've _really_ got to learn to control that."

"I know," he says, frowning slightly. She stands up and he leads her outside, closing the front door gently behind them. "I just don't know how. I don't know how to control any of my powers, actually. I was being taught for a little while, but it didn't work out."

"Taught?" she repeats. "Someone taught you? Who?"

"An invisible man," says Peter, hands in his pockets as he stares straight ahead. Claire tries not to concentrate on the harsh night air or the snow falling into her hair. She keeps her focus on Peter, who is serving as a somewhat adequate distraction from the cold.

"No way," Claire breathes out excitedly. "Invisible? That's so cool."

Peter gives her a wry glance. "Not for him. He kind of got stuck that way. He can't ever be seen."

Claire doesn't know how to respond to that, so she doesn't. After a couple of moments, when she's no longer entranced by the sight of her breath coming out of her mouth and nose in white circles that swirl through the air, she looks at Peter again. "Can I see?" she says, and she thinks it's a testament to their connection (or his ability to read minds) when he doesn't have to ask what she's talking about.

And then suddenly Peter is gone.

Claire gasps loudly, staring at the spot where he'd been. He's laughing a little at her shock and surprise and it's the weirdest thing _ever_ because she can't actually see him. "Oh my gosh," she says, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief. "That is so freaky!"

He materializes next to her again, looking amused. They keep walking, closer to each other this time, and Claire allows herself a smile. She'll never be able to understand her relationship with Peter, she thinks. Just this morning he was berating her for eavesdropping on his conversations and now they are perfectly okay again, walking and acting as if they had never fought a day in their lives. Of course, this morning's disagreement hadn't _really_ been a fight, but it had felt like one to her at least.

And now he's nudging her arm with his, hands still in his pockets, and looks ahead. "We're almost there."

Claire shivers. "Why are we walking again?"

"We'll drive back," says Peter, but before she can ask him how that's possible when they didn't bring a car, he's taking long strides ahead of her in the snow and she's calling after him to wait for her.

She reaches him eventually and notes with confusion that they're standing in front of a storage facility. "What are we - "

"This is where Nathan keeps things that he's hiding from everyone else," says Peter, lifting on the bottom of the door in an attempt to pull it up. Claire thinks briefly that his method is definitely not going to work and he seems to realize it, too, because he straightens. "Anyway, what's inside of here should knock out all those thoughts you have about him not caring about you." Peter lifts a hand to hover above the key lock and jerks it to the right; they key lock drops off and he bends down to the door again, lifting it up successfully this time.

"I can't really see," Claire says into the darkness.

"You're so impatient," Peter says amusedly and Claire squints, trying to see whatever he's taken her to see at five in the morning.

"I just wish I knew what was going on," she corrects him.

"Nathan got you a Christmas present," Peter says, searching around in the dark for some kind of light. "Every sixteen-year-old's dream."

The light clicks on and Claire gasps, clapping her hands to her mouth. She stares open-mouthed at what's in front of her and slowly turns to face Peter's smirking face. "No way," she breathes softly, not believing it. Nathan would never...he couldn't care about her _that_ much...then again, he did have a lot of money so he could afford something like this...

Peter starts to fumble around in his pockets and holds up a set of keys as Claire looks, aghast, at her new and only car.

"I don't believe this," she mutters, eyes roving over the red BMW lovingly.

She spins around just in time to catch the keys as Peter tosses them to her. They feel like gold in her hands and she smiles her first genuine smile in what seems like ages.

_All because of Nathan,_ she thinks, her eyes beginning to water with tears.

Peter steps closer to her and he squeezes her shoulders gently and Claire leans back ever so slightly into him. "This is amazing," she says, the happiness swirling wildly inside of her.

Suddenly her skin tingles as she feels his breath by her ear. "Merry Christmas, Claire," he whispers.

And even though it's still four days before Christmas and she doesn't know how 'merry' it'll be with her bio-dad in a coma, the only think she can think is, _Totally_. 


	9. Home For The Holidays

**Chapter Nine - Home For The Holidays**

When Claire Bennet had found out she was adopted, her world hadn't fallen to pieces. It hadn't broken apart at all. Even then she had known in her heart that though they weren't her biological parents, Sandra Bennet was her mother and Noah Bennet was her father. She hadn't wanted to know who her real parents were, hadn't really cared, because she already had a family.

It was only when she had discovered that she was indestructible that she had felt the need to seek out her biological parents, to see if they were like her. Still, Claire had never expected to develop a relationship with them or even come close to caring for them; they had obviously never cared about her.

Now she knows her real mother, a fire starter who has her hair, her eyes, and her mouth. And now she knows her father, a politician who just happened to be the brother of her hero. Claire's feelings for her mother are pretty much established - the two of them could be friends, she could maybe learn to care for her - but her feelings for her father are all over the place.

When she had first met him, he had turned her away, promising to fill the shoes of daddy once he won an election. From that point all he had done was let her down, giving her no reason to trust him. He had wanted her to disappear to Paris and turned his back on his own brother.

And then he had saved the world, redeeming himself a bit in her eyes. But the fact remained that Claire still had no idea of his feelings for her, where they stood as father and daughter.

And now she has a car, bought by him the second he found out she was alive, and it's one of the greatest presents she's ever gotten. Claire's not one of those crazy teenagers obsessed with fast driving and looking cool in a car (not anymore, anyway), but just the fact that Nathan would buy her something, _anything_, and especially a car makes her soften when she thinks about him.

Before this moment, Claire cared about Nathan for Peter's sake, because she knew Peter loved him and would be lost without him. Now she thinks maybe she can care for Nathan for her own sake.

She stands, looking through the blinds into Nathan's hospital room, her fingers playing nervously with her long hair. Her legs feel like lead as she enters the room and she barely notices Peter and Heidi turning around to look at her as she stands between them. She can only focus on Nathan.

"It'll be okay," says a voice and Claire doesn't have to look up to know that Peter's standing beside her.

"We'll wait outside, give you some privacy," says Heidi softly and Claire nods slowly, swallowing the lump inside her throat.

Peter gives her a small smile and guides Heidi away, leaving Claire alone in Nathan's hospital room.

It's the first time she's been with her bio-dad by herself and it's a bit unsettling. She doesn't know what to do. She can't kiss him on the forehead like Heidi does or hold his hand like Peter does, because either one would be extremely weird. She reaches the side of his bed, stares down at his pale face, and sighs. She thinks of her bio-mom, of Heidi, of Peter, even of Angela, and wonders if their feelings for Nathan have ever been as confused as her own and what keeps drawing them back to him.

"Hi," she says quietly, watching his chest rise and fall peacefully. "It's Claire."

She ponders adding _Your Daughter_ to the end of that sentence, but decides against it, then realizes that he can't hear her anyway so she shouldn't be debating what to say or what not to say in front of him.

"I'm going back home to Odessa soon. Today." She looks away from his face and moves her focus to her hands instead. "But I wish you would wake up. I wish you would wake up because...I want to know you. I want to know who you are. And I want you to know who I am, too."

She wipes away the tear forming in the corner of her eye and dares to look back at him again; there's no sign that he's heard her words, but instead of discouraging her, this calms her nerves. "And your family really needs you. They need you to wake up, to be their hero. So just...come back. Please."

The room rings with her plea and she nods, feeling sort of peaceful at the kind of semi-closure she's received. "Goodbye, Nathan," she says, and she walks out of the hospital room.

---

"This isn't goodbye," says Peter for the third time, and for the third time Claire nods and says, "I know."

Angela stands a good distance from them, but Claire can feel her grandmother's eyes on her and it makes her uncomfortable.

"I'll keep you updated," Peter continues. "I won't keep you in the dark, Claire."

She smiles up at him, thanking him with her eyes. "I know," she says.

"I'll drive your car down soon, I promise," Peter says and he says this softly so Angela can't hear.

"Thanks," says Claire, feeling a warm flutter in her chest at the thought of her car.

She looks down at her watch, noting that her flight leaves in ten minutes. _I have to go_, she thinks, not really wanting to leave. Peter hands her the roller backpack she's traveling with and Claire feels another warm flutter in her chest when their fingers brush slightly.

"Text me about Molly," Claire says, walking backwards toward the security check.

Peter smirks; Mohinder had called him this morning, giving his consent for Molly to teach him her power, and Peter had actually jumped up and down, much to her amusement. Claire only regrets that she won't be there to watch him learn Molly'  
s power.

"I'm too old for texting," says Peter and Claire rolls her eyes. "But I'll call you."

"I'm expecting it," she says, and with a last wave of her hand, she turns her back on her uncle and prepares to head home.

---

_The plane touches down in Texas and her dad's waiting at the airport. She feels a rush of happiness at seeing him again and practically flies into his arms, inhaling him and smiling into his shirt._

They go out to the car and Claire laughs when she sees Zach sitting in the backseat, holding up not a banner, but a sheet of notebook paper that says 'Welcome Home, Claire' on it.

She climbs in the car, punching him in the shoulder. "Dork."

"Ugly."

"Idiot."

"Bitch."

---

Claire is used to fake Christmas trees. In the past, her dad was always away on business and wouldn't appreciate a real one, Lyle was a teenaged boy who wouldn't appreciate a real tree on principle, and her mom never wanted to put in the effort to decorate one.

This year she pleads for a real one. It'll make her think of New York, of that giant tree in Times square, and of Peter. Her dad relents and they drive to the tree lot. She spends an hour looking over the trees, deciding which one would look best in their living room, and when she's finally decided, her father goes to go get one of the workers to help.

"Claire?" says a voice.

She turns around to see a familiar face. "Hey, West," she says. "What are you doing here?"

West chuckles. "Picking out a Christmas tree for my family," he says.

"Right," says Claire, feeling foolish. _Duh_, she thinks to herself. _What else would he be doing here?_

"That's a nice one." He indicates the tree she's standing beside. "You have good taste."

"Why, thank you," she says brightly. "How's your winter break been?"

"Boring," he admits, pushing his brown hair out of his eyes. "But it's a little more interesting now that I've bumped into you."

It's obvious that he's hitting on her, but Claire doesn't feel irritated by it like she normally would. West seems honestly genuine about it and before she can stop herself, she feels herself blushing slightly. "Well," she says, her heart starting to pound just a little faster, "maybe we'll bump into each other again."

He grins widely and Claire can't help but do the same.

---

_Christmas seems to last for only two seconds, but it's two seconds that Claire can sit back and be thankful for everything in her life. Sylar's still out there and her bio-dad's still in a coma, but she's alive. Her father is home and not shrouded in mystery, her mother remembers things now, and Lyle's not as annoying as he used to be._

She gets a phone call and almost hangs up because she doesn't recognize the number, but then she hears, "Claire?" and she smiles because it's Peter. She never thought that he actually would call her. They exchange "Merry Christmas" greetings and that's about it because he has to go train with Molly, but Claire feels happy all the same.

She's even happier when Zach hands her a gift wrapped box and she opens it to find a yellow pants suit and a black belt. "Your superhero costume," he says jokingly, shrugging his shoulders.

The measurements are exact and she raises an eyebrow at him, but he points to Lyle. "We went through your clothes," he admits and Claire stifles a laugh at her mother's bewildered look.

---

She bumps into West again sooner than she expects. She's frowning at her cell phone, wondering why, after three times of calling him, Peter has not answered his phone. Just as she starts punching in keys to phone him again, she hears a car horn honk.

It's West and she tucks her phone into her pocket, then gives him a smile. "Hey," she says, as he slows down the car, his upper body hanging out the window.

"I thought I recognized you," says West.

"You following me?"

He chuckles. "Not really. I was on my way to the mall. All those after Christmas sales, you know."

Claire raises an eyebrow slightly. "You're going shopping by yourself?"

He shrugs. "You want to come?"

Claire, never a girl to miss a chance to go shopping, shakes her head eagerly and climbs into the passenger's seat.

---

_"You're so spoiled," says Zach. "First a car from the dad who barely knows you, now clothes from some guy who barely knows you."_

Claire slumps onto his bed, stretching herself out sideways across it, propping her head on her hand and looking at him as he checks his email. "West didn't buy any of it," she corrects him.

Zach spins around in his desk chair to face her. An impish grin is on his face. "You think he's cute, don't you?"

"No," Claire lies. "He's totally not my type."

Zach rolls his eyes. "Tall, dark, handsome. He's your type."

Claire throws a pillow at him.

---

School starts up again and Claire finds herself actually looking forward to it. Despite the fact that the girls on the cheerleading squad ignore her now that she's no longer on it, she's starting to make other friends. West, in particular, is turning out to be someone she feels like she can trust, someone she can talk to.

The fact that he's just plain _hot_ helps a lot, too, but Claire tries to ignore the butterflies she gets in her stomach when she's around him.

Her father pulls her aside one day, looks her in the eyes seriously, and says that he's been noticing how much time she's been spending with West. Claire doesn't understand where he's going with this and tells him to spit it out, and she's both touched and offended when her father begs her to be careful, saying that he doesn't want another Brody to happen.

Just as she's leaving the room, her dad calls out her name. She whirls around.

"Are you going to tell him about what you can do?"

Claire cocks her head slightly to the side and smiles sadly. "No," she says, "you want him to think I'm a freak?"

---

She's calling Peter for the third time this week, and for the third time this week, he's not answering his phone. "What is _wrong_ with you?" she says angrily down at her Sidekick. He had promised to _call her_, damn it, and he's only called her once.

Pulling her bag strap more tightly on her shoulder, Claire shoves away her phone and walks quickly to the Burnt Toast Diner. She's meeting Zach there, their usual hang out spot, and maybe she'll order a plate of French fries and rant about what an ass Peter is.

Because that's the only explanation for Peter not calling - that he's an ass. He'd promised to call her about his training with Molly, to tell her if Hiro came back, and anything else important. But even if he didn't have anything exciting to report, he's her uncle and should be checking on her.

She opens the door to the diner and looks around. Zach's not there yet and Claire sits down at the booth, dropping her bag on the floor. Tapping her fingernails on the counter, she waits for someone to come take her order.

A jingling sound signals the door opening and Claire twirls around on her stool to see if it's Zach.

Instead, she blinks several times because she can't believe what she's seeing.

The man in front of her, dressed slickly in a blue suit and red tie, looks just as surprised as she is. "Claire?" he says and he smiles.

"N-Nathan," she breathes. 


	10. Meet The Parents

**Chapter Ten - Meet The Parents**

The door jingles again and Claire sees that Ando is now walking towards her. "Hello, Claire," he says, smiling and looking very windswept, not picking up on the bewilderment that must be all over her face. Claire looks outside, sees her red BMW parked in front of the diner and there he is, Peter, closing the driver's door and making his way to the diner.

Her eyes turn back to Nathan.

She's completely and utterly speechless.

Peter opens the door to the diner and seems to notice Claire right away. Surprise lingers on his face only for a second before he glances between her and Nathan; Claire stops gaping at Nathan long enough to glare at her uncle.

"What's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_?" gasps Claire. "You said you were going to call me!"

"I did call you."

"On Christmas!" Claire says. "Just one time! You said you were going to call if anything important happens!"

Peter holds up his hands. "I know," he says. "I know."

The calm expression settled on his face annoys her, so she lets out her anger in the way that she knows best - she punches him in the arm, hard. "Do you not think that this - " she gestures wildly to Nathan, so full of emotion she doesn't know how to deal with it, " - is important?"

"Of course I do, Claire," he says, "I just - "

"Whatever." She cuts him off, not _believing_ that after promising not to keep her in the dark, Peter did the exact opposite.

"I thought," Claire says, her voice shaking as she ignores Peter and turns to Nathan again, "that you were in a coma."

Nathan closes the distance between them and places his hands on her shoulders. "I was until about an hour ago," he says quietly. He looks over at Peter, whose arms are crossed in a stony silence. "Peter didn't have time to contact you, I wanted to fly here right away."

"Fly?" she whispers. "But the car - "

"Peter teleported. I flew with Ando and Peter teleported with the car."

"You can do that?" Claire asks, glancing at her uncle. Peter shrugs, not looking at her; she suddenly wishes she hadn't punched him.

"I would have been here sooner, but I had to see Heidi and the boys," Nathan says, making her look away from Peter, and suddenly Claire wraps her arms around his waist, breathing in his starchy suit smell, something unfamiliar and yet she's glad it's back, glad that the man who saved the world has returned. And, what's more, he's returned to _her_, his illegitimate daughter, and she's so confused and grateful that she does the only thing she's ever known how to do really well - she continues to hug him.

If Nathan feels awkward by this sudden and confusing display of affection, Claire doesn't feel it. He slips into this hug just as well as he did when they hugged for the first time in his office, but instead of feeling cold and bitter, Claire feels ultimately relieved in his arms.

Soon enough she pulls back, traces of a smile on her lips, as she looks over at Ando and Peter. She hugs Ando, too, and Peter for good measure. "Sorry," she whispers, embarrased, into his ear.

"Don't worry about it," he whispers back. Claire pulls away from him, returns his tiny smile, and watches the way Peter's eyes sweep over to Nathan. The blissful expression on his face makes him look so much younger, and Claire can't be more happy that Peter's finally got his hero back.

---

_When Zach comes into the diner, hair a mess and rambling about an after school meeting that didn't go well at all, Claire grabs his shoulders and spins him around so that he's facing Nathan Petrelli._

"Oh," he says awkwardly, staring around at everyone, "hey."

---

The night goes by in a blurry haze and Claire can't ever remember being so happy and so anxious all at once. After hopping eagerly into the front seat of her car, Peter tosses her the keys and she drives them all to her house.

The greetings are more than a little weird, especially when Nathan's head cocks to the side and inspects her father carefully, then drops the hand he'd been shaking and says, "You, you tried to kidnap me."

Zach punctuates this dramatic, silent moment with a low whistle and Claire resists the urge to smack him.

"I did a lot of things," says her dad, "but I'm not in that business any longer. Now I'm in the business of being a good father," and he smiles warmly at Claire. Nathan crosses his arms across his chest, clearly not pleased with this response, but he steps into the living room anyway and is directed to the couch.

The talk is all boring for the most part, chatter that has nothing to do with anything, until Claire asks Peter how his training with Molly is going.

Peter leans against the arm of the sofa comfortably. "It's done."

Her mouth drops open excitedly. "Done? You can find people now?"

"We find Hiro tomorrow!" Ando interjects, grinning from ear to ear.

Claire nods eagerly. "Okay, cool!"

Her eyes find Peter's and he smiles briefly at her before looking away.

---

After dinner (which is thankfully short, because Claire can tell that Mr. Muggles is annoying the hell out of Nathan), everyone goes back into the living room again, but she goes outside, feeling overwhelmed. She never would have dreamed that her mom and dad would be having a civilized conversation with her bio-dad and uncle, one of whom is a politician, one of whom has exploded.

She also never would have expected to at one moment feel strangely contented and the next hopelessly confused. But she does.

She wants to talk to Nathan, to ask him where they stand. She wants to get to know him, maybe, if he'll let her. He's her father and she's his daughter and even though they're not under the same roof and she already has someone to call 'Dad', she wants to _try_. 

At the same time, Claire's excited about tomorrow, about finding out where Hiro is and bringing him back for Ando, but she wonders what will happen after that. They'll probably all part ways again. Hiro and Ando will go to Japan, which is okay because they aren't related to her, but Peter and Nathan will go back to New York, and she'll be here in Odessa. Is she just supposed to let them go, forget that she's ever met them? Is Nathan destined to go back to being a cold-hearted politician who doesn't have a daughter? Is Peter destined to go back to being a distant memory, the man who never saved her, the man who never wiped her tears? Is she supposed to pretend that she didn't mourn them when she thought they were dead, that she felt like her heart was sewing itself back together when Peter came back, that she never became friends with him?

The cold air makes her wrap her arms around herself and she remembers Peter warming her up with radiation. Smiling softly to herself, she wishes Zach was still here. He'd gone home about an hour ago, leaving her to deal with her "uber freaky family status", and now she needs someone to talk to.

All is quiet and so Claire can easily hear footsteps approach her. She's standing by her family's mailbox, staring out at the stretching black road in front of it, which is illuminated only slightly by streetlamps.

She hears someone saying her name quietly and she turns a little, finding herself looking up at Nathan. Her heart starts to beat rather fast in spite of itself, her nerves catching up with her. She has no idea what to expect from him. "Hi," she offers with a small smile; he returns it.

They stand together in the darkness, silent, and Claire wishes she knew what to say. All the questions that she's wanted to ask Nathan since the night he became a hero have left her suddenly, and she half-wishes that he would take charge and speak first.

About two minutes later, he does. "Claire," he starts, his forehead wrinkling slightly, "I wanted to thank you."

Claire faces him directly, her eyebrows raising with shock. If she had expected anything to come out of Nathan's mouth, it was certainly not this. "Why?" she asks, incredulous.

Nathan smirks slightly. "For saving Peter. For saving me." He gives a soft, deep chuckle. "For saving the world."

Claire shakes her head. "I didn't - "

"Claire," he interrupts, cutting across her protest, "Peter told me that when he came back...you were the only person he could trust. Without me, you were the only person he had left. He's always been too sensitive, even when we were kids. If you hadn't been there, he probably would have...I don't know." 

Nathan shrugs uncomfortably and Claire nods. He seems to be lost in thought for a moment, even though he clearly has more on his mind, so she shifts from foot to foot, waiting for him to go on.

"That night," he starts up again, and Claire hangs on his every word, "I was ready to turn my back on him. You know that. But I couldn't... I couldn't let you shoot him. I just couldn't. And your words - "

"'The future is not written in stone'," Claire recalls.

"They made me realize what I was doing. That I was just going to let him die, that I was going to let you kill him, and I couldn't allow that to happen. Who knows where we would all be if I had."

Claire nods again and Nathan echoes her movement, and Claire knows that he's done saying what he needed to say. It's her turn now. She licks her lips anxiously, hoping she doesn't sound childish when she says it.

"I don't really think of you as my dad," she says, and it's random and abrupt despite the soft tone she uses, and Nathan looks taken aback, not by the admission but by her bluntness, "but I still want to know you. I mean, I didn't before, 'cause I didn't like you. I didn't trust you. But I think that now... Peter's always saying you're a good guy and everything, so we could... I'd like to be your friend."

Claire wishes that her voice wasn't so quiet, that her eyes weren't welling with tears, but Nathan apparently doesn't care; he looks touched. His lips purse together for the briefest of moments as he studies her.

"Okay." He nods, and then he smiles. It's not the wide, fake smile that Claire had seen numerous times in New York on campaign posters, but it's genuine and warm. Seeing it on the face of a man who she's so used to seeing as cold and stiff is one of the weirdest things she's ever seen.

It prompts her to hug him for the second time that day and she closes her eyes this time, letting out a relaxed sigh when Nathan's chin rests on the top of her head. "Okay," he says again, whispering into her hair.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she whispers back, eyes still closed, "thanks for the car."

---

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

I can't sleep. Too excited. Are you awake?

_**To: FilmsByZach  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

Zach?

_**To: WestNotEast  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

West? You awake?

_**To: ClaireBearCheerleader  
From: WestNotEast**___

What's up?

_**To: WestNotEast  
From: ClaireBearCheerleader**___

Remember me telling you about my messed up family? Guess what? My bio-dad's back! He's awake. Isn't that great? I want you to meet him and my uncle.

_**To: ClaireBearCheerleader  
From: WestNotEast**___

That's great news! I'll be there tomorrow. :)

---

West knocks on the door at 10:30 the next morning, when most people his age would still be sleeping. Claire, being one of these people, is still in her pink, teddy bear pajamas when she answers the door, but is happy to see him nonetheless. Kissing him on the cheek, she waves her arms, beckoning him to come in.

She realizes that West has never actually been in her house before and has never met her parents. It has only been a week or so that they've become good friends. A week may not be a long time for most people to get close, but Claire feels that sometimes you can really get to know a person within a week. It was, after all, in a week's time that she got Zach to become her best friend again after his memories had been erased. Sometimes a week is all it takes.

Still, it might be weird for him. "This is okay, right?" she asks, but before West can answer, her father has appeared out of nowhere and walks up to him a bit skeptically before shaking his hand.

Soon Lyle comes up to West, too, and the first words out of his mouth are, "Hey, you look like the quarterback," which makes her father give a hard frown.

Then Ando comes into the room and Claire remembers that today's the day they're going to save Hiro. West's visit is going to have to be quick. She briefly introduces the two, then excuses herself to go get dressed.

As she runs up the stairs, she crashes into someone and falls down backwards, her hand knocking painfully into the banister. She hears a distinct popping sound, but then Peter's lifting her up. "You okay?" he asks, concern there even though it doesn't need to be.

Claire raises her right hand and snaps her pinkie finger back into place, smiling brightly. "Nothing that can't heal," she says and he looks a bit taken aback by her sunniness, which only makes her smile more.

And then she races the rest of the way upstairs.

---

She's dressed in jeans and a red shirt with black stripes, with big, white hoop earrings to complete her outfit. She's glad she wore it because West has been eyeing her appreciatively every couple of minutes for the past hour. 

Thankfully no one noticed, though, because Claire doesn't know how her family would react to a boy checking her out. They seem to like him, which is cool. They've laughed at his jokes and asked him about where he's from (noting his lack of a southern accent), his family, and other safe topics. Claire feels a little silly about it all, because she and West aren't even going out.

Not that she hasn't _thought_ about it...

Shaking her head, she makes a mental note to herself not to think about West today. Today is the day to think about Hiro. She stands up, ready to show West out, and her mom stands up, too. "Hang on a minute, honey, let's pack him up some food," she says, walking to the kitchen.

Only her mother would give a guest leftovers from _breakfast_. Claire follows her into the kitchen, nearly tripping over some garland on the floor, even though Christmas was a week ago. "I'm going to have to put away all the Christmas decorations away today," her mother comments as she packs pancakes into tupperware. "I'll get Lyle to help, while ya'll find this friend of yours."

"Thanks, mom," says Claire, taking the tupperware from her when she's finished filling it with leftovers.

Leaving her mother in the kitchen and walking back into the living room, she sees that no one else is left in the room except for West and Peter. She promises West that she'll see him on Monday and they exchange a hug before he leaves.

"Where's Ando?" she asks, a faint blush still on her cheeks as she turns to Peter.

"Bathroom," he answers.

"Nathan?"

"Talking to your dad in there." He nods toward the den, then stands up and walks over to her. "Ready to save Hiro?"

Claire nods as her mother yells from the kitchen. "Claire, honey, I think there's still some Christmas stuff out there! Could you bring it in here to me?"

"Sure, mom." She walks around the living room, finding a couple of Christmas tree ornaments lying around.

"So, Peter," she says as he hands her a string of popcorn kernels lying at his feet, "do you guys normally have fake Christmas trees or - "

Her words die on her lips as she eyes the spot above his head.

Mistletoe.

If she had been blushing before, that's nothing to what she's doing now. She turns her eyes immediately to the ground.

"Claire, what - ?"

His words fade away, too.

Then, into the quiet, he says, "Oh," as if this is nothing to be concerned about.

But it is because it's her and her _uncle_ and they're under _mistletoe_. And you have to kiss when you're under mistletoe, it's like a rule of some kind. Which makes this beyond weird.

Still, they go for it at the same time.

Claire lifts her head, preparing to kiss him briefly on the lips, before she realizes that this is not the kind of kiss Peter has in mind. He's leaning down to kiss the top of her head, but it's too late now because she's already moved.

He winds up kissing her nose instead and Claire's eyes flutter shut at the touch. It's quick, but it's like a caress and she finds herself wondering what it would feel like if he kissed her on the mouth.

But Peter pulls away, smirking at her in that Peter way of his, and she pushes that thought out of her mind, a bit confused. Why is she even thinking this way? Peter's her uncle, for crying out loud. People just don't have those kinds of thoughts about their uncles. _Ew._

Thankfully oblivious to her thoughts, Peter reaches up and takes down the mistletoe, handing it to her as Ando comes back into the living room. "Ready to be a hero again?" he says gleefully, and Claire doesn't know if he's talking to her or Peter.

She responds anyway, pasting a just-as-gleeful smile on her face, trying to ignore the dizzying sensation in her stomach and her still tingling nose. 


End file.
